^ 



I MlK^U^ "I I nsi.Kl ^- 

illillllliiiHiiii 





-^4^ 




WRITIIGS AXD SPEECHES 



alva:n^ stewaet, 



SLAVERY. 



EDITED BY 

LUTHER RAWSOlN^ MARSH. 



KEW YORK : 
A. B. BURDICK, 145 IsTASSAIT STREET. 






A-^ 



x^ ^ ^$\ 



ExTERED according to Act of Congi-ess, in the j-eur 1SG9, by 

LUTHER R. MARSH, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for tlie Southern District of 
New York. 



W 



.\7-'l?^ 



W. H. TiNSON, Stereotyper. Geo. EassELL & Co., Printera. 



GENEEAL CONTENTS. 



PACK 

Portrait 1 

Preface ^ 

Preliminary Chapter 9 

Scope of the Book (Letter), 184G 40 

First Published Speech against Slavery, 1835 50 

Response to Gov. Marcy's Message, 1836 58 

Address at 1st Annual Meeting of N. Y. A. S. Society, 1836 86 

Various Extracts 103 

Speech on Right op Petition, Pennsylvania Hall, 1838 118 

Speech on the Great Issues between Right and Wrong, Pennsyl- 
vania Hall, 1838 129 

Letters to Samuel Webb, 1838 155 

Speech before the Legislature op Vermont ICO 

Extracts from Speech before the General Assembly of the Pres- 
byterian Church, Philadelphia, 1839 ISO 

Speech in answer to Henry Clay, 1839 1?5 

Letter to Gov. Gil>ier, of Virginia, 1841 219 

National Committee's Address, Albany, 1840 234 



IV GENERAL CONTENTS. 

PAGK 

Letter to Samuel Webb, 1842 248 

Letter to Dr. Bailet, 1842 250 

Argument, in the Cases of the State v. Van Buren, and the State 
AGAINST Post, on the Question whether Slavery "was Abol- 
ished BY the Constitution of New Jersey, Adopted in 1844, 1845. 272 

Argument in above Case, in Eeply 352 

Letter to Dr. Bailey, 1845 368 

The Act op 1793, 1843 377 

KsPLY to the Junius Tract, 1843 389 

Selections 398 

Reply to Democratic Review, 1845 409 

Prospects op Liberty, 1846 418 

Table of References 421 



PREFACE. 



It was originally the design of the compiler to have ap- 
pended the writings and speeches of Mr. Stewart, as well on 
slavery as other topics, to a memoir of his hfe, now in pre- 
paration. But the variety and length of these anti-slavery 
productions, and the peculiar interest with w^hich these 
questions are now debated, have induced me to publish, some 
entire and some in part, selections of his speeches and writ- 
ings relating to that tangled problem, whose present is so 
fraught with difficulty and danger, and whose future 
hangs portentously in cloud. We may hope, I think, that 
if there can be any solution, by mortals, of this great and 
complicated subject, it will be discovered by the earnest gaze 
of millions of men, now directed to it. And when an origi- 
nal thinker like Mr. Stewart, moved by disinterested 
impulse, and an ardent love of truth, has for years applied 
the powers of his mind to a consideration of the problem, in 
all its ramifications, it may aid the national discussion of it — 
employing, or destined soon to employ, the tongues and pens 
of the,. whole country — if the opinions and arguments, thus 



VI PREFACE. 

wrought out in the first stage of the controversy, shall be 
gathered and given to the public — if right, to triumph, if 
wrong, to suffer overthrow. 

Among the earliest and most persistent of those who 
enhsted to resist the aggression of the slave power, and to 
combat the injustice of the slave system, a full history of his 
labors and cooperation, would reveal the thorny path -which 
these reformers were obliged to tread, and the mode by 
which the mighty question, from being generally ignored 
and buried in forgetfulness, has, amid the stormiest oppo- 
sition and the fiercest threats, now at last, in the space of 
twenty-seven years, loomed up in its gigantic proportions, 
before the anxious gaze of the Republic and the world. 
But as my object here is to let the arguments of Mr. 
Stewart stand or fall by themselves, I have only space to 
give, independent of what maybe obtained from the writings 
themselves, a cursory view of a few of the prominent events 
of his career, as connected with this topic. 

Those who may read these addresses will be surprised, I 
doubt not, that the author, in the very opening of the discus- 
sion, should have so fully surveyed the subject in its length 
and breadth, with a glance at once so comprehensive and 
minute, and have preoccupied, so thoroughly, the whole 
field now filled by the advancing debate ; as if, with his fear- 
less associates, bearing the standard of the army of Freedom, 
he marched, twenty-seven years ago, as " a moral recruiting 
sergeant " (for so he styled himself) into the wilderness, and 
firmly planted the ensign upon a summit, around which the 



PREFACE. Vll 

van are nosv assembling, but not }'et readied l)y the on- 
ward hosts. 

In anticipation, therefore, of a biography, not yet complete, 
hereafter to appear, to consist of autobiographical sketches, 
professional speeches and anecdotes, addresses on Internal 
Improvements, Tariifs, Education, and other topics of public 
interest, extracts from journals and correspondence, tem- 
perance orations, and the current narrative of his life — I hare 
arranged and now give to Humanity the following thoughts 
of Alvan Stewart, in its behalf, the promulgation of which, 
in his day, though restricted by prejudice from an extensive 
circulation, yet cost him the sacrifice of popularity, and many 
friends. 

This statement is due to those who, yet holding the 
author in remembrance, are often inquiring for his Life, and 
who might else suppose this to be the memoir they knew to 
be in progress, instead of, as it is, a smgle phase of a character, 
broad, catholic and interesting, 

Ltjther R. Marsh. 

New York, May, 1860. 



ALYAN STEWART 



PKELIMmAKY CHAPTEE, 



BY THE EDITOR. 
ALVAN STEWART AS AN ANTI-SLAVEllY MAN. 

Ix a great moral contest, the man who, in his life-time, has 
fought bravely for Avhat he deemed the right, does not cease 
to battle when he is dead. The thoughts he forged — his 
moral and intellectual weapons — still lay on the field of action, 
inviting the grasp of those who may succeed hun in the con- 
test. Eleven years have gone their rounds since Alvan 
Stewart was removed from his warfare in the cause of 
human rights, but we shall find, I thmk, that no arms since 
wrought, have a keener edge, a heartier stroke, or a more 
ponderous weight, than those his hands let drop, when he 
could lift them no longer. 

Mr. Stewart was, early in fife, imj^ressed w^ith the evil of 

slavery, and, in October, 181G — nearly half a century ago — 

while detained at Charlottesville, Virginia, by a personal 

injury, he wrote to his friend. Judge Morse, of Cherry 

YaUey: 

1* 



10 ALVAN STEWART 

The blacks have corrupted the whites beyond conception. Vir- 
ginia may bid farewell to slavery, in time, if the blacks improve by 
mixture for a hundred years, as they have for the last century. 
Curses on the Dutchman who sold the first cargo of slaves at James- 
town, in 1620. 

And when the subject began to be agitated at the North, 
about 1833, and the anti-slavery sentiment to assume an 
organized form, Mr. Stewart became convinced that slavery 
was a crime, and that duty demanded the exercise of all 
legitimate and constitutional efforts to restore the slave to 
his rights and to liimself. 

Yielding to the requisition of conscience, he consecrated 
himself to the cause. He organized societies, delivered 
addresses, wrote reports and essays, collected and expended 
money, and travelled far and wide. He was of the most 
active and efficient of those men of the dawn-light, who 
enlisted in the morning of the enterprise. He founded an 
anti-slavery society at Utica, of which he Avas elected presi- 
dent. "But from the beginning, he, and they who acted with 
him, encountered the most determined and vindictive op- 
position. The doctrines they enunciated w^ere covered with 
odium. Every advance was in the face of ridicule and 
reproach. Threats of jDcrsonal violence Avere laA'ishly out- 
poured. Public feehng w^as so excited that it was scarcely 
safe for a man 'to repeat the very words of the fathers of the 
Republic on the subject. But neither he, nor those Avith 
Avhom he acted — the very heroes of reform — Avere to be 
deterred, by any personal considerations, from pursuing what 
seemed to them the path of duty ; and, until the close of his 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 11 

life, in 1849, we find him constant to his first convictions, and 
strenuous in his labor to advance them, equally diligent and 
bold, whether amidst applause or menaces, whether in the 
kindred and sympathetic circle — small though it was — that 
approved him, or ostracized by society and party ; whether 
health gave vigor to Ms voice and action, or his pen was 
feebly held from the illness that assailed him. 

"You must know," he says, in a letter to his sister, "that in six 
months I have travelled not less than 6,000 miles in running to and 
fro on the earth, pleading for the slave. I have done four times 
more labor for him this year, than in any previous one. God be 
praised, our cause is doing nobly in Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, 
Michigan and New York." 

Again he writes : 

Utica, Notertiber 2, 1842. 
Dear Bailey : 

Sir ; I ought to be extremely thankful to the Giver of all good, 
to be enabled to say, that the month of October just past, in point 
of labor, has been the most favorable of my fife, as I have been 
enabled to do more than in any other month of my existence, to aid 
the cause of man-hood struggling to throw off its thing-Tiood. 
October, with its wild winds, howling tempests, descending rains 
and falling snow, disrobing the bygone summer of its queenly 
attire, to put on the solemn dress for the winter solstice, seems more 
than any other month, in this latitude, to warn us of the value of 
time, its fleetness, the brevity of the summer of human life, how 
soon all that is bright and beautiful must lie covered with the shroud, 
and how truly, with most of us, it may be said, that in the vares and 
sorrows of each single day, we lose sight of the chief object of exist- 
ence, until the great harvest is past, and at the end of our journey, 
learn that we have entirely mistaken the right road. The Anti- 
slavery Liberty men of this State have made September and October 
the campaign months, in which the war against slavery has ra^ed 
with more than its accustomed vigor. 



12 ALVAN STEWAJRT 



THE SLAVERY MOB OF 1835. 



Upon the announcement that a meeting of the Utica 
Anti-slavery Society would be held on the evening of the 
11th August, 1835, placards were posted around the city, 
reqmring all good citizens, who were opposed to interfering 
with the concerns of the South in the rights and pri\T.leges 
guaranteed to them by the Constitution, to attend. The 
rumor of an expected riot spread through the town. 

Fear of a serious disturbance kept some of the members 
of the society away. The house was crowded to suffocation, 
above and below. Mr. Stewart, the president, dehvered an 
address. But the public had not yet quite reached the con- 
clusion, that, in this country, free discussion should be 
interdicted, and the evening passed without any attempt at 
violence. 

Mr. Stewart then drafted a call for a State Convention, to 
be held at Utica, on the 21st of October, 1835, for the pur- 
pose of forming a New York State Anti-slavery Society. 
Tliis call was signed by himself and others, to the number of 
438, in different portions of the State. Upon its announce- 
ment, the peoi3le were in arms. Prominent and influential 
men rushed to the attack. Streams of indignant calumny, 
from a hundred presses, were poured updn the writer of the 
call and his associates. 

In the county of Oneida, and particularly in Utica, the 
excitement was vehement, and deepened in intensity as the 
time approached. For days and weeks before the Conven 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 13 

tion, it was the subject of exasperated conversation and 
threatening denunciation at every corner. The most violent 
passions were aroused against it, and its projectors. 

On the 16th of October, the Common Council of the City 
of Utica, by a vote of 7 to 4, granted permission to the pro- 
posed Convention, to hold its session in the court-rooms at 
the Academy. On the next day a large concourse of many 
of the most respectable citizens of Utica gathered, in indig- 
nation, at the court-rooms, to repudiate the action of the 
Council. Resolutions were adopted, charging the vote to 
be a flagrant usurpation of power — a direct indignity to 
the good citizens of Utica — that the meeting would not 
submit to the disgrace of an aboHtion assemblage in a pub- 
lic building of the city, reared by the contribution of its 
citizens, and designed to be used for salutary pubhc objects, 
and not as a receptacle for deluded fanatics, or reckless incen- 
diaries, and that it was the incumbent duty of every citizen 
to use all lawful and proper means to avert the diso-race 
which would rest on the city if the Convention were suffered 
to assemble. 

As the time approached, great preparations were made by 
the opponents of the Convention to prevent it. BuUies from 
the Sixth Ward in New York were imported for the occa- 
sion. Orders were given to grocers to distribute liquors <:^ra- 
tnitously to the mob. A bloody collision seemed inevitable. 
But there were men in this reform who knew not fear. Lewis 
Tappan, of New York, who did not intend to be present, 
on hearing that, if he did, he was to be the recipient of a\ 



14: ALVAN STEWAET 

coat of tar and feathers, put himself to much personal 
inconvenience, that he might be there to witness the per- 
formance. Notwithstanding the threatenmg storm, the Con- 
vention met, pursuant to the call, at the Second Presbyterian 
Church. 

Pi-omptly, as the clock struck the hour of meeting, it was 
called to order by Mr. Stewart, who addressed the assem- 
blage. He had the entire programme arranged and prepared 
so as to perfect, speedily, the organization of a State Anti- 
Slavery Society, and accoraphsh the business portion of the 
meeting, before any disturbance should overtake them ; for 
it was well known that an excited and angry meeting, led 
by some of the most influential politicians of the city of 
Utica, indeed of the State, was then in session a block or two 
off, at the Court House, and it was every moment expected 
that that assembly Avould come, e7i masse^ to the church, 
to prevent, by force, the organization of the Convention. 
Through Mr. Stewart's generalship and promptness the Con- 
vention was organized, the Constitution he had prepared 
w^as read and adopted, the officers appointed, and the new 
society launched, as an organized body, before the clumsy, 
but furious mob arrived. "While Mr. Lewis Tappan was 
reading a declaration of the sentunents of the Convention, 
the force, in the form of a numerous committee of the citi- 
zens of Utica who had been appointed at the Court House 
meeting, entered the church, followed by an enraged mob 
which crowded the building. The committee demanded to 
' be heard. The multitude shouted. It was impossible even 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVEKY MAN. 15 

for a Stentor to lift his voice above the terrific din. Alder- 
man Kellogg, — a man of great personal strength — was seized, 
struck, and his coat torn to pieces. The proceedings of the 
Convention were drowned in the yells, oaths, tread, and rush 
of the frantic throng. Mr. Stewart vainly attempted to be 
heard. Angry menaces at intervals, as the crowd paused for 
breath, rang through the church. The aged secretary, a cler- 
gyman and a Revolutionary soldier, was rudely handled and 
his papers seized. The brave old man would not surrender 
them, but scattered them defiantly in the air. The Conven- 
tion, unable to proceed in this deafening uproar, adjourned, 
and the delegates left the house amid a shower of threats 
and imprecations. 

" I was standing near Mr. Stewart," says Mr. Storms, " at 
the height of the excitement, and saw a porter, named Mat- 
thews, a canal runner, and a powerful man, take hold of 
him. Stewart had been long enfeebled by poor health, but 
his dormant muscles waked up at the touch of his assailant ; 
his whole soul seemed in his arms, as he lifted the stout por- 
ter from his feet and tossed him off, like a fly. 

It was always a mystery to Matthews how his strong new 
coat was rent m twam (unnoticed at the time) as he was flung 
from Stewart's giant grasp." 

After the adjournment, the hotels Avere visited by sections 
of the mob, and the foreign delegates ejected. The excite- 
ment did not abate. In the evening the mob demolished tiio 
Anti-Slavery printing ofiice— destroyed its furniture, and 
strewed the street with the offending types. Mysterious 



16 ALVAN STEWAKT 

rumors indicated that a night attack was contemplated upon 
Mr. Stewart's house. 

Mr. Stewart, becoming con-vinced that the mob was in 
earnest in its designs to assail his mansion, went about the 
necessary preparations for defence. Carpenters were imme- 
diately employed ; hasty barricades, consisting of large tim- 
bers, were put up at the doors and windows. A number of 
friends were assembled, who were of the right stuff, and fifty 
muskets obtained and loaded, and all was ready for action. 
Stewart directed the defences deliberately, but with earnest- 
ness and decision. One of the members of the convention, 
from abroad, who was present, said, " Mr. Stewart, I can't 
stay with you, I am a peace man." " So am I," replied he, 
" but this house is my castle. It is my duty to defend this 
household, and I shall do it. I am captain of this fort, and 
if they come, I'll mow down fifty of them, in the name of the 
Lord." It became rumored in the town that a cordial recep- 
tion at Stewart's house might be anticipated. Scouts were 
sent forth to spy out the position of affairs. Their reports 
were not favorable to the safety of the enterprise, and the 
contemplated assault was totally abandoned. 

The members of the Convention, the next day, accej)ted 
the invitation of Gerrit Smith, Esq., and proceeded some forty 
miles to Peterboro', to continue their deliberations. They 
were pelted on the way with stones, mud, and eggs not of 
the freshest, as they marched, as it were, through an enemy's 
country. 

Such were some of the difiiculties which the pioneers in 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 17 

this movement had to meet and overcome, and such the 
excited state of that public mind on which they wished to 
make an impression. What a change has come over the sen- 
timent of the North, smce that period ! 

I give, in this volume, the speech of Mr. Stewart at this 
Convention, as reported ; for, though the subject had not 
fully ripened in his mind, it is yet interesting as one of the 
very leaders of that great discussion, by tongue and pen, 
which has since ensued. 

In a libel suit, brought by a lawyer, for being charged with 
inciting the mob to assault the Convention, on its way to 
Peterboro', Mr. Stewart, in summing up for the defence, 
said : 

No opinion is matter of visitation by a mob. There is no evil so 
great, but a mob is greater. It overthrows our social system. In 
monarchies, the armed soldiery defend liberty. 

This advocate who complains that the defendant charged him with 
inciting the mob to attack the Abolitionists, would destroy northern 
liberty to support slavery. Liberty, it seems, is to be preserved by 
putting a town in uproar, by banishing 600 people, by driving men 
from their beds, by taking life. 

It was all done to advance liberty, by this second Cincinnatus — this 
lawyer, and his professional coadjutor, sitting up nights to take care 
of the liberty of their country. Eather were they trying to pull the 
rope of the curfew bell of American freedom. 

These Abohtionists were fleeing from a mob at Utica ; but they ran 
from Scylla to Charybdis — they ran from the giant of mobs, and were 
brought up by the squadrons of these two captains of rotten eggs — 
these egg-and-mud marshals. Instead of the deep learning and pens 
of these two promising props of the country being employed, to show 
that the Abolitionists were wrong, mud and eggs were used, as a 
safer kind of logic in their hands, than the artillery of the mind. 



18 ALVAN STEWART 

These men thought that they were a portion of that salutary public 
opinion of the United States, which governors have told you was the 
medicine to bring the friends of liberty to their senses. 

George Thompson, then in this country, writes him from 

Boston, October 2, 1885. 

Deae Sie : 

Your faTor of the 22d ult., inviting me to the ISTew York Con- 
vention to be held on the 21st, is before me. I hope, God willing, to 
be present. It will indeed be delightful to meet the friends of the 
glorious cause in such a meeting, for such a purpose. May He who 
rules the elements in the moral as in the physical world grant us his 
presence, and make the Convention, however it may be assailed, the 
means of promoting his glory and the interests of the oppressed. 

The call is nobly signed. The pro-slavery prints may well be dis- 
concerted. It is ludicrous to hear the "Journal of Commerce" talk 
of a death struggle. Had the sapient prognosticators who manage 
that paper judged rightly, they would have read that document as 
the annunciation of the approaching advent of an infant Hercules — 
ordained to seize the monster by the throat. 

The State Society, when formed, will be a weighty link in the 
chain of causes. 

My kind regards to all around. 

Yery truly yours, 

Geo. Thompson. 

The Abolitionists had grown into sucli formidable propor- 
tions, that Governor Marcy, in his annual message for 1836, 
thought fit to administer to them a severe rebuke. This 
called out a rej^ly from Mr. Stewart, hereafter given, of which 
he thus speaks in a letter to Mr. Tappan : 

Utica, ll!;^ Fehruary, 1S86. 

Lewis Tappax, Esq. 

Deae Sie : I venture to introduce to your consideration a rather 
surly child of mine. You will find the child in the " Standard and 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 19 

Democrat," printed in this city, and I intend to send it to Governor 
Marcy to iiurse. 

To drop a figure, a communication of seven or eight columns di- 
rected to Marcy, and signed by my name, exhibiting my views of the 
Abolition part of his turgid message, especially on the Constitution 
of this State and of the Union, which two Constitutions furnish the 
highest defence against all assaults, if we can have the benefit of 
them. I trust that I have been so fortunate as to present some few 
views on the Constitutions which are neither threadbare nor hack- 
neyed, which will not impede, if they do not hasten, the cause we love. 
The production is intended to prevent legislation by this State. I 
have no means of multiplying copies beyond the single edition of a 
newspaper ; perhaps it is well I have not. 

But if our Executive Committee should think it might aid us in 
preventing legislation in this State, or anywhere else, they are wel- 
come to use it in any shape or form they please. 

I think it our duty to express our notions on Constitutional Law, 
as well as our adversaries ; it is all on our side. 

Theodore Weld is lecturing, and has been for four nights, in the Mob- 
Convention-Church, in Utica, to the admiration of hundreds. The 
house is strained every night. He will stay here till March. ITot a 
dog wags his tongue, mob-like, against us. The days of mobs are 
gone by. Mr. "Weld is one of the most astonishing men of the age. 
He is logic and eloquence. 

■\Ve are gaining ; our cause goes forward with great success. 
Mr. Weld will go, in March, and lecture two or three weeks in 
Eochester, and then, after that, two or three weeks in Buffalo, and 
then return to this county and make this county the head-quarters 
of his eflforts for some time. 

Is'ew Jersey and this State will be the two States, if any, which 
will pass laws abridging our rights. I feel it, therefore, our duty to 
throw every obstruction before their despotic wheels in our power. 

Please lay this before your Executive Committee. Accept of the 
assurances of my most affectionate esteem and Christian respect for 
yourself and coadjutors in the cause of humanity. 

Your friend, 

Alt AN Stewaet. 



20 ALVAN STEWART 

Alvan Stewart was an undoubted abolitionist — that is 
to say, in favor not only of the non-extension of slavery, but 
of its abolition. Yet great misapprehension prevails on this 
subject. It will not be found, I think, that he ever advo- ' 
cated any infringement on the rights of the South — that he 
was of those (as all abolitionists seem to be supposed to be) 
who would endeavor, by force, to interfere with the condi- 
tion of affairs at the South — that he desired to violate any 
syllable of the Constitution. He stood by the Constitution 
of the Union — by the Union itself — with all his might. He 
considered that instrument as a document of liberty, and 
held that slavery was contrary to its benign provisions. His 
arguments, to prove this, are now given to the j^nblic ; and 
it might not be hazardous to jirophesy, that, though 
delivered in their time, in the face of party rancor, and 
amidst the sneers of the body of the people, saved from 
extinction only by the genius with which he invested them, 
they w^ni, if not by the present, yet by some future gene- 
ration, come to be regarded as displaying the clearest 
insight, and giving the loftiest interpretation to that great 
compact of the jDCople of the States. 

He lent no countenance to that radicalism which lifts its 
sw^ord against the government of the country. 

What the Constitution does mean, how its various jDrovi- 
sions are to be construed, are, surely, legitimate subjects 
of debate. Men have not always agreed, do not now 
agree, as to this construction. Chief Justice Marshall owes 
his renown to his judicial construction of portions of this 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 21 

instrument, and Daniel Webster, in its discussion, added 
new laurels to his brow as a great forensic orator. Those 
of its i^rovisions, which, on the one side, are supposed to 
prove that that document acknowledged slavery, and, on 
the other, w^ere claimed to make it a document of liberty, it 
was the desire of Mr. Stewart to discuss, to bring up for fair 
and full consideration before the minds of the American 
people, and that they should render their honest verdict 
thereon, at the ballot-box. 

It was not always the fortune of Mr. Stewart to agree, on 
every point, with all those who have associated with him in 
onslaught upon slavery. Small as was this little band, and 
hopeless as seemed the enterprise to their united strength, 
yet it was disturbed by factions, and its efforts distracted 
and weakened ; disagreements occurred as to the best modes 
of prosecuting the object they had at heart. 

The question of pohtical action was a fire-brand in the 
camp ; thrown there by the fearless hand of Mr. Stewart. 
This question, fruitful of discord, was, whether this little 
knot of men, with voice so weak as to be scarcely audible 
amidst the dm of contending political parties, should 
attempt to stand up alone, and assert its independence ? 
Was the basis broad enough ? Would they not be crushed 
between the two great parties of Whigs and Democrats, mto 
which the nation, North and South, was nearly equally 
divided ? With many, the ties of party were so old and 
strong, and the association so dear and enduring, that they 
could not be broken. Others believed that the true policy 



22 ALVAN STEWAP.T 

was to keep aloof from all party action and association, and 
so awaken opposition from neither, but woo the affections 
of both. But Mr. Stewart, early in the history of this move- 
ment, became convinced that the Anti-Slavery cause could 
make itself felt, only when its advocates should arise and 
stand up between the two great political parties, distinct 
and independent, and seizing, with a controlling hand, the 
balance of power, should direct it to the achievement of the 
great object at which they aimed. But, before putting 
forth these views, he was compelled to wait for the time to 
ripen. When he did advance them, he met ^^th opposition, 
even in his own ranks. Independent of the world's antagon- 
ism, he had much to strive with in his stmggles for con- 
science sake. He was the great originator and champion of 
the doctrine of political action. He did not despair, but 
continued to portray the great good that would result from 
bringing the subject of emancipation into the political 
arena. 

Some, in the Anti-Slavery party, set up a creed of nineteen 
propositions, and sought to make a compliance with them 
all a test of communion. But Mr. Stewart strenuously 
opposed this. He thought it calculated to divide, weaken 
and destroy. 

" I believe," said he, "that we have quite enough, in the enforce- 
ment of our one idea, to employ all the moral and political capital we 
possess — that those who are anxious to consume time, in the consi- 
deration of other topics, as a part of the abolition crusade, and feel 
especially bound to place free trade or tariff, as a good or an evil to 
be obtained or rejected, in the same catalogue with the liberty or 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 23 

slavery of three millions of men, will do well to secure another room 
where they can amuse those who sympathize with them, rather than 
pain and distract those who have no taste for nineteen undertakings 
until they have some evidence of their power to accomplish one. 

■" If you have attempted to tear out one stump from your field, by 
your oxen, lever and screw, and could not raise it, will you not pat 
on more oxen and thus increase the power? Oh, no, say these gen- 
tlemen, if you cannot uproot the stump with the strength you pos- 
sess, then, by all means, bitch on to eighteen other great oak and 
hemlock stumps, at the same time, and it will be sure to come. 
^PPb' yo^^r ciphers to this rule of three^ and let us know— if ten yoke 
of oxen cannot cause the roots of this sturdy stump to forsake their 
ancient bed, how many yoke will it require to upheave this and 
eighteen others, at the same time ? 

"Men differ in their belief, when they attempt to make a creed, in 
proportion as they multiply the number and elements of discord. 
And it has always been found a great achievement in a reformation, to 
reduce the undertaking to a single objeat ; for, as subordinate sub- 
jects are increased, the best friends fall out by the way, as to the 
means of prosecuting the main design. 

" Irish Emancipation was carried alone, about 1825, after the labor 
of a quarter of a century. The English Eeform Bill was carried in 
1832-3, after the nation had struggled for it for more than a century. 
West Indian Emancipation triumphed in 1833, after a terrible com- 
bat in the public mind. The reduction of British postage was achieved 
about 1840, and the abolition of the corn laws effected in 1846, after 
an unparalleled commotion. Kow, had these five questions been 
yoked together — embodied in a creed— men withholding their vote 
for candidates, unless, like a jury, they were unanimous upon all these 
topics, all would have failed. Our friends in England have only 
accomplished these glorious objects, by doing one thing at a time. It 
is here, as there, the only key to success." 

Mr. Stewart did not believe it to be the duty of the citi- 
zens of the free States to pursue and surrender fugitive 
slaves. In a letter relating to this subject, he says: 



24 ALVAN STEWART 

"The jury trial law is not repealed; and if it were, I defy the 
slaveholder to obtain a slave from central New York. I defy him, 
thou dost defy him, he, she or it defies him, we defy him, ye or you 
defy him, they and all defy him. We defy him in every mood and 
tense of the English language." 

The Rev. John Pierpont writes to him : 

Boston, Mass., 24 MarcJi, 1840. 
My dear Sie : 

I have long owed you a letter of acknowledgment and thanks 
for your very kind, gratifying, complimentary, sympathizing, amusing, 
honest and flattering letter of 14th November last. I did, when I 
first received it, as I do now, most heartily thank you for it. It was 
so encouraging — it expressed such a downright, hearty sympathy in 
my poor eflbrts and my pretty hard trials, that it was like sunshine 
to me after a long northeaster. Thank you, my dear sir. It was good 
perse, and it was, and is, especially good, considered in relation to the 
strifes and struggles that both the writer and the icritten to have to 
pass through in these stirring and sifting times. 

And now, my dear sir, allow me to return you my thanks, also, 
for the speech you made before the Young Men's Anti-Slavery 
Society, etc., at Albany, last month. The first sentence in the report 
of that speech is a volume. The events of every day that has passed 
over us since the moral reforms — temperance and anti-slavery — have 
been started in this country, go to confirm not only the truth of the 
remark that " a nation may lose its liberty in a day, and not miss it 
in a hundred years" — but the application of that truth to our own 
abused and blinded country. Was there ever a country so blessed, 
and, at the same time, so cursed, as is ours ? — so blessed of God — so 
cursed by the avarice and servility of man ? What Samsonian 
strength the young giant must have in his back and muscle, that he 
can stand up as he does with slavery — that " old man of the sea "— 
upon his shoulders, and that he can get along as he does with such a 
sea of rum to wade through — and keep himself alive even, covered 
over as the poor fellow is with leeches of office from the crown of his 
head to the soles of his feet. My dear sir, can he stand up much 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 25 

longer, think ye ? I do not ask can he stand up a free young giant 
— that is out of the question. Free he is not. Free he has not been 
for years. But can he stand at all, and bear much longer the weight 
of his own chains? From all his curses, from rum and slavery, and 
what is equivalent to both and the cause and father of both— his own 
avarice and immorality — may the Ruler of the nations ere long send 
him a good deliverence ! 

I know, my friend, that I need not exhort you to go on in the 
course that you have marked out for yourself. "Fight the good 
fight of faith," in your own most excellent way. Give no quarter. 
Let your good old broadsword split 'em down from chin to chine ; 
spare 'em not till they cry for quarter. I suppose that then the 
tenderness of your nature will not allow you " thrice to slay the 
slain." I thank the God whom you serve, that you have so much 
of this world's goods that the foes of freedom, of God, and of cold 
water, cannot starve you by thrusting you out of your stewardship, 
upon the cold world, to dig or beg, as they are trying to, me. 

Believe me truly, 
* Your friend, 

Jno. Pieepont. 

Whittier writes : 

Amhsburt, 18th Ut Mo., 1842. 

My dear Friend : 

Thou hast doubtless already seen by the " Emancipator & Free 
American " that we have declared our determination to secure, if 
possible, thy attendance at our Convention of Liberty at Boston, on 
the 16th of next month ; and I now, in behalf of the Liberty party 
of Massachusetts, and in accordance with my own feelings, earnestly 
invite thee to bo with us on that occasion. 

The legislature of the State will be in session, and our evening 
meetings will be held in the State House. We must have thee with 
us. We shall have a mighty gathering from all parts of the State — 
and wo want thy voice among us uplifted in the name of God and 
humanity. Do not disappoint us. Thy attendance at the Worcester 
Convention was of immense service to us. I do not say this by way 
of flattery ; all of us know it here. There is an intense desire to hear 

2 



26 ALVAN STEWART 

thee, and thou wilt have such an audience as could not be gathered 
elsewhere in the Union. 

Please write me a line on receipt of this, informing me whether 
thou shalt be able to come. Once more let me adjure thee to let no 
small matter prevent thee from complying with our request. In the 
language of Chinese diplomacy — I hope thou wilt consider this — " a 
special edict ! and obey accordingly." 

With kind regards for thy family, I am, as ever, thy friend, 

John G. Wiiittiee. 

A correspondent of the " Press " writes : 

In an Anti-Slavery Convention, held at Port Byron, New York, 
in 1842, in the midst of a speech of Mr. Bradley, the door of the 
church in which the convention was held was opened noislessly, 
and there appeared the tall, straight figure, and pale, grave fticc of 
the slave's friend, Alvan Stewart. The spontaneous and universal 
burst of applause, from the entire audience, well indicated the im- 
pression left by his eloquence upon their hearts during his visit 
among us last winter. Upon being called upon, he arose and made 
one of his best speeches. What a wonderful faculty he has to hold 
a subject up before his audience — what quaint sayings and un- 
paralled comparisons ! At one instant his audience would be roll- 
ing with laughter, which would soon give place to sobs and grief. 
Never did I witness a greater manifestation of his honest, holy 
feeling, than when he alluded to his large meeting, at Fort Defiance, 
on the Maumee, in Ohio, but a few weeks since, under the " Old 
Council Oak." This venerable monarch of the forest had, he said, 
from time immemorial, been the shelter of the various Indian tribes, 
who for centuries had met under its spreading branches, for council, 
in peace or war. While alluding to the fact that, in that honored 
place, the citizens of Fort Defiance were assembled to listen to his 
stories of the poor slave's wrongs, his whole soul was stirred within 
him, and a flow of tears burst from his eyes, producing a correspond- 
ing feeling throughout the audience. 

William Goodell, than whom no one is more familiarly 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 2f- 

acquainted "with the progress of the Anti-Slavery movement, 
writes : 

If 7011 will permit me, I Avill take the liberty to suggest two or 
three things wherein Mr. Stewart was of most essential service to 
the cause of freedom. 

1. lie was the Jirst to insist, earnestly, in our consultations, in 
committees and elsewhere, on the necessity of forming a distinct 
political party to promote the abolition of slavery. You will find 
notice of this on page 469 of my history of " Slavery and Anti- 
Slavery." At this time, Mr. Stewart stood alone on the Executive 
Committee of the Is ew York State Anti-Slavery Society, at Utica, in 
advocating the measure. Gerrit Smith, as president of the society, 
and member of our Executive Committee, was at that time (Feb., 
1839) opposed to it, nor was I, myself, as one of the committee, 
and as editor of the "Friend of Man," the society's organ, prepared 
to advocate the measure. President Beriah Green shared also in the 
hesitancy of the rest of the committee. Myron Holley, at a convention 
in September of the same year, introduced a resolution and address 
in favor of a distinct party (Hist. p. 470) ; but Mr. Stewart had pre- 
viously done much to prepare abolitionists for that movement. So 
that the Liberty party, the Free-soil party, the Free Democracy, and 
the Kepublican party — whatever may be said of their varying plat- 
forms and policy — all owe their origin to Alvan Stewart, in the 
first place, and to Myron Holley afterward, more than to any other 
men. Mr. Stewart presided at the Albany Convention, 1st April, 
1840, at which the Liberty party was organized. Gerrit Smith by 
that time had become ready to cooperate in the measure. 

2. Alvan Stewart was the first to elaborate a compact argument 
in defence of the doctrine that the Federal Government had consti- 
tutional power to abolish slavery in the slave States. Though Mr. 
Stewart based his argument solely upon one single clause of the 
Constitution (Amendments, Art. V.), yet his argument was exten- 
sively regarded a triumphant one, and the debate it elicited among 
abolitionists gave rise to a number of elaborate discussions of the 
subject in pamphlet form afterward. The great change of senti- 



28 ALVAN STEWAET 

ment already perceptible, and still in progress, concerning the bear- 
ing of the federal Constitution on slavery— a change destined, per- 
haps, to revolutionize the national policy— is largely attributable to 
the labors of Alvan Stewart in 1837-8. 

To you, sir, I may add my conviction, that, in pioneering these 
two measures— (1) a distinct political party ; (2) a national policy 
directly and positively against slavery — to the extent of its utter 
extirpation, Mr. Stewart has laid a foundation for a reputation as 
enduring as the cause of freedom in America. Whether his measures 
are ever adopted or not, his proposal of them belongs not less to the 
history of the country than to his own biography, and should be 
made prominent in both. 

3. I ought to add, that Alvan Stewart, as chairman of the Execu- 
tive Committee of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, at 
Utica, rendered quite as effective services in devising plans, ways, 
means and appliances, for propogating anti-slavery sentiments, and 
initiating anti-slavery organizations, and rendering them effective, 
as he ever did in his public speeches, debates, and writings. No one 
out of the Executive Committee could have any adequate knowledge 
of his labors in this department, nor due appreciation of their im- 
portance in the promotion of our cause. In 1836, he threw up his 
extensive and lucrative law practice, to devote himself to the one 
great cause, of which he regarded the then three and a half millions 
of slaves his direct clients, and the entire American people, their 
liberties and their national prosperity, as indirectly, and yet in 
reality involved. 

Not all the plans and projects of Mr. Stewart were accepted and 
adopted by the Executive Committee. Perhaps some of them may 
have been chargeable with the " eccentricity " with which his bril- 
liant genius was marked. Not all of them that were adopted 
worked as happily as might have been desired. But enough of 
them, either modified or unmodified, in committee, did so far suc- 
ceed, as to entitle him to the credit I have given him, and to the 
gratitude of the country. 

No part of my life do I remember with more pleasure than my 
social intercourse and public labors with Alvan Stewart. Some- 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 29 

times we have earnestly difFered from each other as earnest men 
will, intent on a common cause. But none of those differences ever 
lessened my esteem for him, and admiration of him. 

Much as I enjoyed, at the time, those brilliant scintillations of wit, 
eloquence, pathos, humor, and eccentric thouglit for wiiich lie was 
so very remarkable, and which so enlivened the social conversation 
and the public speeches of Mr. Stewart, my memory is not as reten- 
tive of them, in detail^ as of the more serious points of argu- 
ment, opinion, sentiment, plans and measures which it was my 
privilege to discuss with him, in consultations, in committees and 
otherwise, for the promotion of the objects we were intent upon 
promoting. Nor am I as well qualified to relate, effectively, his 
sallies of wit and humor, which I do partly remember, as I ought to 
be, to give them their full force. I will endeavor, however, to 
recall and to sketch a very few of them. 

Sometime in 1836 or '7, Mr. Stewart earnestly defended a couple 
of colored boys, arrested at Utica as fugitives from slavery in Vir- 
ginia. The boys in some way got free, and made good their escape 
to Canada. Much excitement was occasioned, and the pro-slavery 
presses of the North exerted themselves to throw odium npon Mr. 
Stewart for his participancy in the affair. The southern papers 
copied the inflammatory statements and comments of their northern 
allies, and the name of Alvan Stewart was execrated by the slave- 
ocrats from Maine to Georgia. In the midst of all this, Mr. Stewart 
received a letter from the old lady in Virginia, to whom, according 
to the statutes of Virginia, the boys belonged. She thanked Mr. 
Stewart for his kindness to her boys, who, she said, had escaped 
from Virginia, with her approbation. They had been pursued 
by her nephews, her presumptive heirs, who were intending to 
sell them to the far South, as soon as the old lady should die. This 
statement accorded precisely with the story Mr. Stewart had 
received from the colored boys. 

It was in reference to the same or a similar effort of Mr. Stewart, 
that he received a letter of hearty commendation from another lady 
in Virginia, whose husband was a slaveholder, and a strong pro- 
slavery man. She informed Mr. Stewart, that soon after the recent 
birth of her eldest son, she had ordered her carriage and had driven 



•go ALT AN STEWART 

a considerable distance with her babe, to a neigliboring parish, and 
had him christened by the name of Ahan Stewart^ much to the 
astonishment of the parson, the audience, and, afterward, of her 
husband, when lie learned what had been done ! That Virginian 
Alvan Stewart^ if now living, is nearly old enough to vote as his 
mother would doubtless counsel him. In conventions Mr. Stewart 
sometimes told the story in answer to the question — " Why don't 
you go to the South to preach your abolition?" He thought he was 
going to the South, most eflfectually, by working at home. 

In Alvan Stewart's day, it was thought a knock-down argument 
against an Abolitionist to ask whether he would be willing to have a 
white man marry a " nigger." One day, in alarge convention, while 
Alvan Stewart was speaking on some resolution, he was interrupted 
by a pert young gentleman, neatly attired, with the stereotyped ques- 
tion. Mr. Stewart replied, in a polite and dignified manner, explain- 
ing that Abolitionists only asked that colored persons should enjoy 
the protection of law like other persons, and be secured in the exer- 
cise of their inalienable rights. Abolitionists had never set themselves 
up to be matchmakers, had never undertaken to determine who peo- 
ple should marry. With this explanation he attempted to resume the 
thread of his discourse. But the questioner was not satisfied. He 
repeated the question again, and, with an air of triumph, demanded 
an explicit answer. Stewart straightened himself, and stood, as in 
an attitude of deliberation. "Well," said he, "since the gentleman 
is so anxious to have the question distinctly answered, although, as I 
have said, it does not belong to the Abolition question, I will frankly 
Btate ray own position on the subject. Let me then say to the gen- 
tleman that if he should fall in love with a colored girl, and should 
find that he could not be happy without her, / should interpose no 
otjections to the marriage^ This was said with a sober and Innocent 
look, as if the speaker really supposed the questioner was anxious to 
get his consent to such a connection. The house roared with laugh- 
ter, at the expense of the pert young gentleman, who seemed annihi- 
lated. But there Alvan Stewart stood, as sober as a judge, without 
relaxing a muscle. After the tumult had subsided, he turned to the 
young man, with the same innocent, sober countenance, saying: "Is 
my young friend relieved of his anxiety ?" Another roar, louder and 



AS AN ANTI-SLAYERY MAN. 31 

more prolonged than the first, used up what there was left of the in- 
terrogator. 

Alvan Stewart was never more in his element than when, on the 
platform of a large and enthusiastic anti-slavery convention, he 
pleaded for contributions and subscriptions of funds for the Executive 
Committee, to carry on the cause. This advocacy was always as- 
signed to him, and he executed his office in a manner peculiarly his 
own. After stating the principles, measures and objects of the So- 
ciety, and the uses it had for funds to sustain lecturers and presses, 
and to print and circulate tracts, etc., he would begin to call for sub- 
scriptions and donations in a style resembling that of an auctioneer, 
calling for bids. "Who will be the first to subscribe $100?" If a 
lower sum was ofi'ered, he would say : " Wait, we must have the 
$100 men first." Collectors, in the mean time, would be passing 
around the room to take names and moneys. One after another in 
the assembly would rise and announce their names and the sums they 
would give ; Alvan Stewart, at the same time continuing his appeals, 
interrupted constantly by the announcement of names, residences, 
and sums in process of being reechoed on the platform, noted down 
by the secretaries, and handed up, in bills or pencilled pledges, by the 
receivers. Alvan Stewart's ear caught every name, and his lips 
returned thanks to each donor by name — all commingling with his 
imploring appeals, witty conceits and original remarks. Such a med- 
ley of pathos and puns, of demonstration and drollery, mortal ears 
never before heard. The attempt, by any other man, would have 
seemed a satire — a broad farce. But in the hands of Alvan Stewart, 
all went to make up a symmetrical whole — sympathy and assistance 
for the slave. " Thank you, Mr. A., in the name of all that is abo- 
minable in slavery." "Twenty dollars from Mr. C." "Thank you, 
Mr. C, in the name of all that is precious in humanity." " Ten dol- 
lars from Mr. D." "Thank you, Mr. D., in the name of all that is 
sacred in holy justice." " Thirty dollars from friends in Tonawanda." 
" Thanks, kind friends, in the name of all that is dismal in the Tona- 
wanda swamp." And so he would go on, by the half hour or hour, 
Nobody was tired. The footing up of the subscriptions and the 
counting of the bills convinced every one that none but Alvan Stew- 
art could have raised one half the amount. On one occasion a liberal 



;S2 AI.VAN STEWAET 

donation coming from Mr. Hill — " The Lord bless Mr. Hill," said 
Stewart, " may he grow to be a large mountain." 

"Abolitionists," said Mr. Stewart, "are the most grateful people 
in the world. They make more account of small favors than any 
other people living. They are like country shopkeepers who wind 
up their advertisements with, ' The smallest favors gratefully acknow- 
ledged.' " This he said in gentle reproof of the too easy credulity of 
Abolitionists, in giving credit to the half-way concessions and profes- 
sions of political men who sought anti-slavery suffrages on the ground 
of compliances, of little or doubtful practical value, and who thus 
submitted to compromises, incompatible, as he believed, with their 
principles as Abolitionists, and fatal, in the end, to their success. 
To some who said, "Half a loaf is better than no bread," he would 
reply : " That depends on whether you get the half-loaf or lose it, and 
whether what you do get be wholesome nutriment or poison." To 
opposers who called Abolitionists "m^Ti of one idea^'''' he would say, 
it was more creditable to have one such idea, than to have all the 
ideas that ever floated upon the brain of a pro-slavery man. 

I was riding with Stewart, to attend an anti-slavery convention. Our 
road led through a thriving village, in which was a large manufactur- 
ing establishment, upon which, besides the principal sign, was the in- 
scription " Power to ?6^," meaning water or steam power. " Power 
to let .'" exclaimed Stewart ; " yes, Abolitionists have got power to 
let — surplusage of argument to spare — motive poicer enough — moral, 
political, religious, economical, and philanthropic — to abolish all the 
slavery in creation, and all the other curses and abominations of 
which the human mind ever conceived. Yes, if every planet in the 
solar system were inhabited, and disgraced with slavery ; if every fixed 
star in the firmament were the centre of a planetary system, and every 
planet thereof inhabited with slaveholders and slaves. Abolitionists 
have got motive power to spare sufficient to break the fetters of every 
slave in the universe. Yes, Abolitionists may advertise ' Power to 
let P And yet," he added after a pause, " it remains to be seen whe- 
ther pro-slavery priests and politicians haven't got stupidity and self- 
ishness enough to resist it all." In the Convention the next day the 
audience had the benefit of the idea. 

During the log-cabin furore that carried the election in favor of 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVEEY MAN. 33 

Gen. Harrison, Mr. Stewart said lie expected that our next Presiden- 
tial canvass would produce a candidate to be supported on the ground 
of his not living in any house at all, but burrowing, like a wood- 
chuck, in a hole on the hill-side. 

It is diflScult to repeat effectively Mr. Stewart's peculiar sayings. 
The manner, the tone, the air, the expression of countenance, are all 
wanting. And so, for the most part, are the occasioiis SLud the design 
of his saying them. In respect to the pullication of many of them, 
he might say if living— as the clergyman did to a committee who 
applied to him for a copy, for the press, of an eloquent sermon he 
had just preached, during a tliunder-storm—'-^lf^^^ said he, "you 
will agree to print the thunder and lightning along with it, I will 
give you a copy." 

Says Gerrit Smith, iu a letter of May 2d, 1857, to the 
wrilfer : 

*' Mr. Stewart was emphatically a man of genius. I never knew 
one more so. He was a man of great thoughts. I never knew one 
of greater. He was a man, too, of very tender heart. His pity for the 
poor and oppressed was very deep. Above all he was a Christian. 

" I knew Mr. Stewart well. We were friends for many years. I 
admired him and loved him." 

It may be thought that Mr. Stewart sometimes dealt in 
language too harsh and uncourteous ; that he should have 
denounced slavery in a more delicate and silken phrase. 
But it will be remembered in palliation, if palliation be 
needed, that he was roughly used by the advocates of the 
system he was opposing; that all the vituperation of our 
vocabulary was hurled against him ; the shafts of ridicule, 
the bolts of anger, the arrows of fierce denunciation, all the 
slanders that malice could invoke— nay, that words were not 
the only weapons that rattled on his shield— that his popu- 

2* 



34: ALVAN STEWART 

larity was sapped, iDersecutiou Avas started on his track, 
ostracism attempted, and infuriated mobs yelled around his 
house. A man under such circumstances may not be held to 
the strict civilities of debate. Strange would it be if some 
strong expressions, not domiciled in boudoirs, should at times 
escape him. 

Besides, it was no poetical or dainty task he had in hand. 
He was not to describe a landscape or paint a rose. He saw 
this monster evil lifting high its awful form and shadowing 
the land. He felt it to be his duty, however great the 
disproportion in the power of the antagonists, to fight to the 
utmost. Such a conflict was one of earnestness, in Mihich 
there was no time to weigh sentences, or balance courtesies, 
or bring forth his argument with " By your leave." If the 
slave trade on the high seas was justly denounced as a 
'•'• piracy " by the international laws of Christendom, justify- 
ing a yard-arm punishment ; if the pages of our own federal 
statutes confirmed in this respect the opinions of the civilized 
world, he saw no reason why the same language was not 
equally applicable, in principle, to the same trade beticeen 
the States or in the States. I have not softened the laniruacre 
he has chosen in the speeches and writings I have compiled ; 
for it is only by presei'ving his exact i:)hraseology that a 
just and truthful idea can be obtained of the man as he was. 

That, in his years of labor on the questions of peace, of 
temperance and slavery, he Avas impelled by the purest and 
most earnest convictions, by the liveliest sympathy, and by a 
devout religion, those who saw him daily, who heard his 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 35 

familiar conversation from morn till eve, who never observed 
the slightest evidence of apathy or insincerity, who witnessed 
the heroic and concentrated energy with which he sacrificed 
health and wealth and fame upon the altar of philan- 
thropy, are surely well qualified to judge and most sacredly 
believe. 

The change in the conduct of the world toward him, 
upon the announcement of his temperance and anti-slaveiy 
sentiments, was marked and striking. Before that time he 
had been much courted, feted, admired. But such was the 
extreme odium attached to the causes his convictions com- 
pelled him to espouse, that even 7iis great general popularity 
fell before it ; and he became the target, for many years, for 
all the poisoned arrows of intemperance and slavery. And it 
was in sustaining himself under this great reverse of public 
sentiment toward him, and, for many years, to the day of his 
death, breasting the tide of public ridicule, vituperation, 
and, in many instances, malignity, and perseveringly, labori- 
ously, doing what he thought to be his duty Avith unflinching 
firmness and untiring energy, that his character stands out in 
boldest relief, and limns itself upon the canvas in colors 
most enduring. 

One of the greetings which have come to me during my 
work will, I am sure, be gladly read by those who remember 
how the writer of it — Theodore D. Weld — held increasing 
audiences at fever pitch, with his flashing eye, his clarion 
tones and marvellous eloquence, without manuscript or note, 
for sixteen successive evenings, in the very church from 



36 ALVAN STEWART 

which the Anti-Slavery Convention had been, but a few 
months before, forcibly expelled. 

"Right heartily glad am I," says Mr. Weld, "tliat a memoir of 
Alvan Stewart is to be published, and that you are to write it. Tho 
world would be cheated out of its own, if the good aud great in Alvan 
Stewart were to bo left in the custody of tradition, subject to all its 
distortions and dilutions. . . . 

■ " I never saw him in private life, except once at his own table, a 
part of an evening, at his house when it was full of company ; and 
now and then as we shook hands, and spoke a word of cheer to each 
other, in our hurryings up and down, driving the brunt of the anti- 
slavery conflict. 

"Personally I knew him less than I knew any other of tho most 
prominent anti-slavery men of New York city, and State. Yet I 
knew enough of him to impress me profoundly with the conviction 
of his rare powers, exhanstless versatility ; that marvel of humor, 
ever fresh, ever at flood tide, and ever Ms o^rw-— those batteries of 
wit, irony and sarcasm always in play, every shot telling, and never 
leaving one the less in tho locker — that power with the ' reductio ad 
dbsurdum'' in argument, in which he had no peer; but better far 
than all, that depth of pathos, those out welling sympathies, never 
at ebb : that ever yearning heart-ache for the wronged, that moral 
courage that always dared yet nevei* knew it dared ; all these, with a 
kindred host come thronging around me at the thought of Ahan 
Stewart. Blessings on his memory. His works do follow hira." 

And when Mr. Stewart was removed, by death, from his 
labors in this cause, the following evidence of the estimation 
in which he was held, by the friends of reform, appeared as 
his obituary : 

It is with pain that we learn that Alvan Stewart is no more 
among the living throng of mankind. His death took place in New 
York city, May 1, 1849, at his home with his family in tho 59th year 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 37 

of his age. This is an event we liave been contemplating for months, 
and always contemplated it with feelings of sadness. 

Mr. Stewart was a native of New Yorlc, and though of respectable 
family, emphatically the artificer of his own fortune. He com- 
menced his professional life at Cherry Valley, Otsego county, where 
he acquired eminence as a lawyer, and for several years had a large 
lucrative practice. In 1832 Mr. Stewart made this city (Utica) his 
home, and until falling health demanded a change of climate. 

Alvan Stewart was a man — an original man — copying nobody, 
imitating nobody, and inimitable in himself, both as to genius, modes 
of expression and the character of his mind and manners. He was 
well read, and had a mind well stored with varied learning ; but 
his borrowed thoughts and vast information derived from books, 
received by passing through his mind and finding utterance through 
his peculiar genius, an originality and freshness which added to their 
power. But it was not merely books or stereotyped ideas that dis- 
tinguished Mr. Stewart and elevated him to a post in society, and 
gave him an honorable name among the distinguished men of the 
age. It was his originality as a thinker and actor, and his indepen- 
dent self-directed course on the questions of the times in which he 
lived. As a man of humor and wit, mingled Avith gravity and pro- 
found good sense, he stood forth as peculiar to his day and age. 
These gave him a power at the bar and force as an orator. But it is 
of Alvan Stewart as a philanthropist we desire to speak. 

Perhaps no living man in America, certainly no one in the State 
of Kew York, has done more signal service for the cause of human 
freedom than Alvan Stewai't ; and it is almost equally true of the 
Temperance Reform. Mr. Stewart was among the earliest, and cer- 
tainly among the ablest supporters of the temperance cause. He 
espoused these enterprises when it cost something to make the sacri- 
fice. "With no earthly or time-serving motive to gratify — while to 
" entirely refrain " from the agitation of unpopular subjects would 
have saved him from a world of odium and malignant misrepresen- 
tation — he obeyed the convictions of his inner man, threw himself 
into the breach, giving to persecuted reform the support of his supe- 
rior talent and personal influence. His name became synonymous 
with " abolition," and " teetotalism," at a time when men's souls 



38 ALVAN STEWART 

were tried. iJ^or did he shrink from the worst opprobrium which 
such an identification of himself with reform, brought on his head ; 
but the power of liis conviction of the truth and uprightness of his 
cause enabled him ratlier to prefer the bad opinion of the world to 
the applause of a time-serving age. It is not strange that those who 
can see no virtue in efforts to relieve mankind of the untold evils of 
drunkenness — to upturn and overthrow the despotism of American 
slavery — should be at a loss to estimate Mr. Stewart's motives ; nor 
is it strange, that, when he in his zealous support of the truth should 
rebuke religious and political delinquency and frustrate the designs of 
the politicians, on his head should fall vile slander, and that he should 
be pointed out as a fanatic. Those who have sought to convict the 
leaders of the abolitionists of being ambitious have had the most 
hopeless cause ever brought before the bar of public opinion. Alvan 
Stewart was a lawyer of the first class. His talent, varied and 
extensive information, education and wealth, naturally placed him 
iu the upper circle of society ; and for him to descend from motives 
of ambition to take the drunkard by the hand and recognize the 
despised African as a man and a brother, would have been a freak 
in human character unaccounted for in the philosopliy of human 
nature. The truth was, Mr. Stewart was highly conscientious, and 
gave to reform, his thoughts, his time and his money, from a sincere 
love of it, and lived and labored to better mankind, trusting to the 
future to vindicate his name, and the Judge of all the earth to mete to 
him his reward. For some five years we were privileged with an 
intimacy and constant intercourse with Mr. Stewart, and we know 
that with him the religious sentiment was predominant and that a 
clear conviction of duty governed his actions. That he was not 
without faults, we are duly sensible ; but his imperfections were not 
of a character to seriously detract from a life devoted to the good of 
his race, and of signal service to mankind. He gave himself heartily 
to the cause of reform, and that too when reform, feeble and 
neglected, most needed his wise counsels and strong and vigorous 
support. From the moment of his consecration, his devotion was 
untiring and unremitted, until reluctantly forced from active service 
by disease and a broken constitution. In his retirement, his reflec- 
tions were those of a good man in view of duties done and responsi- 



AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN. 39 

bilities honorably met, and the faith which bringeth salvation was 
his stay and support in his failing years. Alvan Stewart has lived 
to some purpose. The world ha:s been made better by his living in 
it, and the example of his life will shed blessings on ages to come. 
If a slave now lifts to heaven his manacled limbs, or a drunkard 
reels through the streets, neither that slave nor that drunkard can 
reproach Alvan Stewart, for duties left undone in his behalf. To 
them he gave the better portion of his life— to their deliverance he 
consecrated his powerful mind and the best portion of his days— and 
the blessings of the poor and oppressed will rest on his name. We 
mourn the death of Mr. Stewart and sympathize in the sorrowful 
feelings the news of his death will impart. To us he was a friend, 
forbearing and sympathizing. To us he was a counsellor whose 
advice was imparted with almost parental tenderness. His friend- 
ship we shall ever hold in grateful remembrance, and we hope to 
profit by the lessons of wisdom which have fallen from his lips. 



THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK. 

LETTER OF ALVAN STEWART TO THE LIBERTY PARTY, 1846. 

Let us move, in the solid column, upon the ranks of 
slavery ! Let us lock our arms, by the power of united poli- 
tical action. Let every man's name be enrolled who has 
fired the bullet of his ballot against slavery. Let every name 
be registered by tlie middle of September. Sixty-five thou- 
sand men were found on the Ides of November, 1844, 
inscribed on the muster roll of human freedom. 

THE AEMY OF LIBERATIOX. 

You are the moral army of liberation. It is not an enlist- 
ment for one year, but during the war. This army, with its 
additions, fights for glory in its most exalted sense. To 
deliver three millions of slaves to self-ownership, and give 
them the right to do everything which is not Avrong, are the 
pass-Avords of the army of deliverance. The army of libera- 
tion will remove the fetters from mind and body of enslaver 
and enslaved of fifteen States, and double the agricultural and 
treble the manufacturing and mechanical products. Another 
part of their mission is to establish 36,000 common schools, 
those nurseries of truth and knowledge, the elements of self- 
government, in those fifteen States. This army of liberation 
will carry 500 printing presses, and one million of Bibles, 
and 20,000 school-masters and mistresses, as free-will ofier- 
ing, in the day of a most glorious emancipation, to these 
States. This army is charged with the high duty of blotting 
out Mason & Dixon's line, the line of eternal discord. This 

40 



THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK. 41 

army is to collect the bowie-knives and revolving, liair- 
triggered pistols of these States, and place them in tlie 
bottom of the fathomless sea. This army is to make labor 
honorable in these fifteen States. This army is to remove 
all northern jealousies, and unite North and South, East 
and West, in eternal bonds of fraternity. This army is 
charged with the modification of southern and northern 
opinions as to the constitutional powers of the Federal 
Government, on the subject of tarifis for revenue or tarifis 
for protection, or free trade, and direct taxation, believing 
the extremes, left and right, will see eye to eye, and will 
walk hand in hand when a common interest controls^ and 
common instrumentalities are employed to obtain subsistence. 
This army is also charged with the purification and exalta- 
tion of American character, by creating a bond of union 
between the abstractions of human freedom and the living 
practicalities — ^by bridging that hitherto yawning gulf; and 
this army is charged with the utter extirpation of that deso- 
lating hypocrisy, which so long, in Church and State, 
destroyed the use of language, in suffering a holy abstrac- 
tion, in religion or politics standing as our creed, to be a 
license practically, to act out all manner of abominations ; 
the purity of the creed making atonement for the profligacy 
of the conduct imder it. This army of freedom is charged 
with rescumg the character of this great nation from the 
burning sneers and unanswerable sarcasms of old Europe, 
which declared that as hope for man ascended high, reality 
dug dungeons deep and low in which to hide our shame. 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

This army is charged with the faithful execution of the 
Declaration of Independence ; the great xminrformed^ the 



42 ALT AN STEWAET. 

greatly admired^ but imavailable. For seventy years the 
nation has been so overwhehned with the truthfulness and 
grandeur of its conceptions, that they have been content to 
stand all of this time and shout their admiration before an 
astonished -world, and annually arrest the very wheels of 
human affairs, while on the 4th of July, we stretched the 
utmost power of human genius for the strongest conceptions 
of intellect, and for the most consuming thoughts, to be 
delivered in the most beautiful robes of language, to stamp 
that impression of veneration on the mind of others as deeply 
as it had sunk in our own. 

THE SHIP OF STATE. 

We stand looking at this splendid ship of state, yet on 
the stocks, her masts raised, yards trimmed, canvas spread, 
and ballast in, and provisioned for a circumnavigation of the 
whole circle of human necessities, with orders to call at 
every port, island and country in her course ; carrying jus- 
tice, law, equal rights to all men, furnishing them with a 
remedy for the w^rongs inflicted for ages, possessing the sure 
and certain power of striking fetters and bonds from the legs 
and arms of men, with the power of opening prison doors 
and of placing the victims on the great platform of equal 
and eternal rights, and giving them power to make the laws 
they are required to honor, and in future, the obhgations 
they are bound to obey. 

The Liberty party is charged with the high duty of 
launching and navigating the old ship of American Inde- 
pendence, which has stood ready for a launch from the 4th 
of July, 1776, while the seas have swarmed with pirates and 
buccaniers, who have even come upon her deck and sworn 
by her stripes and colors, that she never shall be launched 
as long as wood grows and water runs. These pirates and 



THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK. 43 

freebooters have sucked the free blood of the nation from 
its veins, and now threaten the lives of those who may- 
endeavor to launch this ship, and declare that she was never 
made to go to sea; she was only made to stand eternally on the 
stocks as an object of unexplainable admiration, as an 
abstract ship, to be deified on the stocks on the fourth of 
July, and point the orations of Juniors and Sophomores, at 
a college commencement ; and in fact, they say, if you do 
launch her, they will bore holes in her bottom and sink her 
and all her glorious freight, as she was meant to be a ship only 
on land and not on the water; and these pirates are ready to 
prove that one of the old ship carpenters who built her at 
Philadelphia, was heard by one of the pirates to say, that 
the ship was not made to go on the water, but w^as intended 
solely for the land. And many say, who are not pirates, 
that we must search for the intention of the old ship-builders 
and hands who framed and made this ship ; if some of them 
did say it was their intention that this ship should sail on the 
land, then we, their posterity, are bound to sail on the land, 
though the ship itself would contradict it, even if every 
builder should swear that the land was her destined ele- 
ment. 

"Will the army of liberation put themselves in position to 
launch this ship, and go on board of her as her navigators ? 

POLITICAL PAETIES. 

There have stood two great parties at the North, who 
have often pretended they were willing to launch the ship, 
but the pirates and buccaniers made such an outcry about 
the story of one of their number having heard one of the old 
carpenters of Philadelphia say, that she was made to sail on 
the land, they have not dared to do it. These two parties at 
the North have been so anxious to carry out the intention 



44 ALVAN STEWAET. 

of the FEAMEKS that they have waited seventy years for the 
pirates to bring forward their ]3roof that such was the original 
understanding ; the j^irates have made arguments through 
several thousand days, while their witness was commg, who 
never came, trying to prove by arguments most profound, 
that it could never have been the intention of sailing the ship 
except upon the land ; for, say they, sailing upon the sea, 
would be at war with our piratical business on the sea, which 
is older than the framing of the ship, and was in existence on 
the 4th of July, 1776 ; therefore the ship must be intended 
to sail on the land^ or stand upon the stocks. The northern 
two great parties have been overwhelmed with the good 
se7ise as well as absoluteness of this prodigious argument^ 
and have been staggered, for seventy years, by its weight, and 
have not yet made up their mind as to the character of the 
reply, or even of its possibility. The argument is so consuming, 
and wherewithal so reasonable, they fear it is unanswerable. 

THE EEVOLUTION SUCCESSFUL THROUGH THE PRINCIPLES 
OF THE DECLARATIOX. 

Now the Liberty party Abolitionists hold the Declaration 
of Independence to be an elementary law, the law of laws, 
the rock of first principles, to which the nation descended, . 
and on which it built i7i the honest hour of its agony ; and 
that every other institution or constitution contravening its 
great essentials is null and void ; for without that declaration 
asserting that " all men were created free and equal," our 
independence could not have been achieved, and but for that 
we should this hour have been revolving, as colonial satellites, 
around the Sea-girt Isle. Had our Declaration of Independ- 
ence contained what many say the Constitution of the 
United States does, a proposition to support slavery (which 



THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK. 45 

I deny), and had the great Declaration contained, what I 
admit is found in the Constitution and laws of several States 
in the South, to wit, slavery, or had the great Declaration 
contained the converse of its own mighty proposition, and 
asserted that some men were created to be free and some 
were created to be slaves, then the battles of Trenton, Sara- 
toga and Yorktown had never been fought ; the British 
" Court Gazette" would on the 1st of January, 1777, have pub- 
hshed an obituary of our Revolution, in these words : " Order 
reigns in the Colonies. Trans- Atlantic freemen refused to 
pour out their blood to sustain the abhorred proposition that 
some men were created to be slaves." To attempt to in- 
graft slavery into our system, is a direct fraud upon every 
drop of blood spilled in the Revolution, every sacrifice en- 
dured, every dollar spent, or misery suffered. 

THE ABJECT NORTH. 

The North has been periodically humbled, kicked and 
trampled under foot, by the South. The just punishment of 
heaven has been poured upon the North, for fortifying and 
propping slavery. The North in Church and State, has 
emasculated the Christian religion, and constitutional law, to 
uphold slavery. The North, for its tameness, and hunting up 
arguments to quiet slaveholding consciences, and basely mak- 
ing briefs to aid slaveholding lawyers to undermine justice 
and overthrow Hberty, is treated with a supercilious con- 
tempt, by the South, the real wages of meanness. In Con- 
gress, the northern man does not rise to the position of a 
privileged serf. This is just ; that men who go round the 
country soliciting posts in Congress and on the bench of the 
Supreme Court^ of the United States, foreign Ambassador- 
ships, and seats in Presidential cabinets, should be obhged 
to earn their positions by crushing slaves and slandering 



46 ALVAN STEWART. 

the Declaration of Indei^endence, and the venerable dead 
who fought for its adoption ; also by sneering at men who 
contend for freedom, justice and law, misnaming them fana- 
tics and enthusiasts. The South have inflicted on the grov- 
elling North pains and penalties, as the instruments of hea- 
ven's vengeance. Yes, tenfold more of real judgments, than 
everything done, thought, or attempted, by England, which 
lit the torch of the Revolutionary war. 

The slaveholders are tantalized, by the sight of the pro- 
sperity of free labor. 20,000 voting slaveholders regard the 
free North and its institutions with malevolence and hatred, 
and God, for just and holy reasons, has used those slave- 
holders as a whip of scorpions, to punish the base boAving 
North, in property, character and Ufe, by war, taxation, 
and debasing humility, as a just retribution for upholding 
slavery and slaveholders ; and for having forsaken the Scrip- 
tures of truth, and having perverted, by base interpretation, 
the Constitution of the United States, from its high freedom- 
protecting sense to a low and degrading piratical covenant, 
to be employed for the destruction of human rights, rather 
than their support. The North bowed in the college, pulpit 
and Congress, to the dominion of the man-stealer, and em- 
ployed its brains in the destruction of human liberty, by a 
servile yielding, to slaveholding construction of religion and 
law. The southern slaveholding merchants sought and ob- 
tained credit in the North, and $500,000,000 Avould not meet 
the losses of the North, in sixty years which were cancelled 
by southern bankruptcy. Thus the North was justly, and in 
part, made slaves to work for the South, as a just punishment 
on us, who would not see injustice in the position of the 
slave. The slaveholders envied us, and hypocriticaUy became 
the advocates of the rights of impressed seamen ; yes, men 
whose own fields were worked by impressed and stolen 
black men. 



THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK. 4T 



THE WAR OF 1812. 

The vrsLY of 1812 the South decreed, and 137 millions were 
wasted by government in its prosecution,, and 200 millions 
more were lost on the sea and land, by our merchants and 
farmers. The South placed Major General Smyth, at Buf- 
falo, a slaveholding lawyer of Virginia ; Major General Win- 
der, a slaveholding lawyer of Maryland, at Forty Mile Creek, 
on the side of Lake Ontario ; Major General Wilkinson, a 
Louisiana slaveholder, at the Cedars and Rapids of the 
St. Lawrence ; and Major General Wade Hampton, the great 
sugar-boiler of Louisiana, and the largest slaveholder in the 
United States (having over 5000 crushed human beings 
bowing to this tyrant), was located at Burlington, Vermont : 
four slaveholding generals, with their four armies, were 
stretched out on our northern frontier, not to take Canada, 
but to prevent its being taken, by the men of New England 
and New York, in 1812, '13 and '14; lest we should make 
some six or eight free States from Canada, if conquered. 
This was treason against northern interests, northern blood, 
and northern honor. But the South furnished the officers, 
the President and the cabinet. This revelation could have 
been proved by General John Armstrong, then Secretary of 
War, after he and Mr. Madison quarrelled. But these slave- 
holders could add Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and perhaps 
half of Mexico, at the expense and disgrace of the nation, to 
extend the area of slavery ; and the North with two votes 
to the South one, professing to be opposed, yield at last to 
the wish of this unprincipled greediness and inordinate rob- 
bery. Forty millions are paid to establish slavery in Florida 
and murder the Indians. How many hundred millions have 
the North lost, after erecting the most expensive manufac- 
tories, and filling them with machinery to have them all 



48 ALYA^ STEWART. 

brought to nothing by a prostration of the tariiF, as at this 
time, in order to ruin the North, without benefiting the 
South ! But will the North still present her back for the rod, 
will she still vote for a slaveholder as President of the United 
States ? The North can never deUver herself and the nation 
from thi^ thralldom, until a majority declare they will vote for 
those men only, who, if elected, will do all in their power for 
the constitutional abolition of slavery. 

THE RECOIL OF SLAVERY. 

If this nation had never undertaken to hold up the hands 
of the slaveholder and crush the colored man, there would 
have been double the amount of wealth there now is in the 
United States. All of the disgraceful wars and the three 
hundred millions of expense thereby, would have been saved, 
and one thousand millions lost by southern bankruptcy and 
change of northern pursuits, lifting up and dashing to the 
ground tarifis for revenue and protection, and that everlasting 
lohirl of inconstancy, breaking up the sober and adjusted 
calculations of men, by throAving interests most momentous 
against the rocks, leaving nothing but ingenuity to collect the 
fragments and form another nucleus, and as it grew to 
importance, malevolence would again undeimine it, and the 
barbarity of slavery raze it to the ground. But for slavery 
we should have ascended the Mount of Civilization, to a 
point never before attained; the land would have been 
filled, even through the present regions of guilt, pauperism 
and destruction in the South, by industrious, prosperous and 
cultivated dwellers of the land, rejoicing imder their own 
vines and the results of economical industry, the social system 
advancing, minds refined, education universal, with peace in 
all our borders. In making the slave suffer, how we have 
been punished therefor ! 



THE SCOPE OF THIS BOOK. 49 



ONE IDEA. 

Since things are so, let the Liberty party take possession 
of the ship, launch it, and put out to sea^ as soon as their 
strength will permit. Let the Liberty party be united. 
The great one idea, that a man is a man, the world over, and 
is entitled to freedom, and that slavery is a sin against God 
and a crime against man everywhere, and that it is your duty 
to vote, and you will only vote for those who will do all in 
their power to crush the crime of slavery, is that on which 
you must and will succeed. There never was a great one 
idea, founded in eternal truth and the nature of things, which 
did not succeed ; and there never will be, as long as the 
promises of eternal truth stand good. 



ALYAN STEWAET'S FIRST PUBLISHED SPEECH 

AGAINST SLAVERY, 
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO, 1835. 

Alvan Stewart, Esq., of Utica, rose and said, that Avith 
the consent of the Convention, he would trespass a few 
minutes on the time of this numerous and honorable body. 

He said this was the first Convention which had ever 
assembled in the United States under such a remarkable 
state of facts as now existed, and which seem to distinguish 
this from all public bodies of men who have ever met in this 
land before. For the last forty days, at least three hundred 
of the public presses have daily poured a continual shower 
of abuse upon tj^e callers and the call for this Convention, 
characterized by a sjjirit of vengeance and violence, knowing 
and proposing nothing but the bitterness of invective, and 
the cruelty of bloody persecution. Our enemies have sent 
their slanders against us, whispering across the diameter of 
the globe, telling the haughty and sneering minions of 
Absolutism, on the other side of the world, that the sons of 
the Pilgrims had proved recreant to their lofty lineage, 
unfaithful to their high destiny, untrue to the last hopes of 
man. 

Said Mr. S., Is it true that the philanthroj)y which warms 
our hearts into action, for the suffering slave, can exile our 
patriotism, and prepare our souls for the most heaven-daring 
guilt ? Is it true, because we feel for bleeding humanity, 
that it makes us cruel ? Can pity produce it ? Can love 
beget hate ? Can an affectionate respect and kind feeling 

50 



HIS FIRST PUBLISHED SPEECH AGAINST SLAVERY. 51 

for all the human beings whom Providence has cast in these 
twenty-four States, be evidence that we wish to cut the 
throats of two millions and a half of our white neighbors, 
friends, brethren and countrymen ? Does a generous regard 
for the injured slave imply hatred for the master? If so, 
the converse of the proposition must be true, that to love 
the master implies hatred to the slave. Neither proposition 
is true ; yet the enemies of this Convention have acted 
toward us as though these propositions had the assurance of 
certainty, as we have on a clear day at twelve o'clock at 
noon that the sun shines on the world. 

MISREPRESENTATIONS. 

We have been proclaimed traitors to our oAvn dear native 
land, because we love its inhabitants. Our humanity is treason, 
our philanthropy is incendiarism, our pity for the convulsive 
yearnings of down-trodden man is fanaticism. Our treason 
is the treason of Franklin and Jay ; our incendiarism is that 
of Clarkson and Wilberforce ; our fanaticism is the fanaticism 
of Earl Grey and Lord Brougham, and the majority of the 
wisest heads in proud Old England ; our sentiments are those 
expressed by William Wirt, Patrick Henry, and Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Our creed is to be found in the two great witnesses of 
God's revealed w^ill to man— the Old and New Testaments. 
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitutions of our 
country, and the laws passed imder them, we make the rule 
of our conduct, in imparting our sentiments to others on the 
subject of slavery. 

The enemies of our noble sentiments and elevated inten- 
tions, have resorted to the old beaten track of misrepresenta- 
tion, and by adding to our code views never promulgated, by 
charging us with intentions never harbored, with expectations 



52 ALYAN STEWART. 

never cherished, and as remote from the mind of an abolitionist 
as infidelity is from the conscience of piety, as meanness is 
from generosity, as bigotry is from charity, as truth from 
falsehood, as freedom from slavery, they would fain make us 
unfit for this world. 

We are not judged by evidence, by our own declarations, by 
either what we have said or done, but by acts which our wily 
adversaries prophesy we will do, or commit, in some future 
period of time ; and thus they lift the curtain which shuts from all 
mortal eyes (but prophets') the great unbounded future, and 
by looking down the vale of time, they behold us engaged in 
the diabolical and blood-thirsty work of getting laws passed 
to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the slave 
Territories, and in this way knocking the fetters from the 
bondman, which our adversaries call treason calculated to 
dissolve the Union. 



. UNIOXISTS. 

What Union ? I doubt not you may see some of these 
Union patriots here to-day, who would take your life and 
mine, and that of every member of this Convention, and in so 
doing think they had done their master a service, and lift up 
their hands for eternal and unmitigated slavery to every 
colored man, woman and child in the United States, and 
throw into the same pile all who differed with them in 
sentiment, to promote the interest of their master. These 
are the patriotic Unionists^ who secretly wish to dissolve the 
Union, by letting the great cancer grow on the neck of the 
Union, without attempting its cure or removal. These are 
the friends of the Union, who are willing to see 2,500,000 
nxen, women and children sacrificed to the demon of 
Slavery. Those Unionists are willing to destroy you 
and me, Mr. Chairman, because Ave are not terrified at the 



HIS FIRST PUBLISHED SPEECH AGAINST SLAVERY. 53 

roaring of the slaveholders, and because we feel for two 
millions and a half of men, women and children who are now 
being offered at the shrine of cruelty, lust and avarice. 
These lovers of the Union refuse to hear the loud lamenta- 
tions of bitter sorrow and hopeless grief, which, like the 
voice of a mighty fiood, ascend day and night from every 
plantation, every factory, every corn-field, every rice-field, 
every tobacco-field, every cotton-field, and every kitchen of 
eleven States, and penetrate the ear of God. 

Mr. S. said. The slaves never held a convention on the 
subject of their wrongs ; they never met to petition for a 
redress of grievances, or remonstrate against the manifold 
injuries by which they are broke«i down. No ! their petition 
was never read within the walls of legislation! Solemn 
thought even to us, who for a moment have become his 
mouthpiece, to tell his wrongs to the world, and demand 
redress. We, even we, white-skinned Republicans, appear to 
be on the eve of losing our rights as white men, for having, 
from the deepest impulses of humanity, become the slave's 
organ, to explain to an unfeeling world the wrongs inflicted 
upon him. If white men in non-slaveholding States, encounter 
so much noisy violence and injury, in barely pleading the cause 
of the slave before those who have no interest in the slave's 
body, and whose only interest is to cringe and flatter the 
master of the slave, what must be the condition of the poor 
slave, left to plead his own cause against his own master — 
that master who is fed sumptuously every day, and clothed 
in purple and fine linen by the im^mid labor of the slave f 
When will the glutton, the wine-bibber, the adulterous, the 
avaricious, and the cruel, listen to the voice of the unaided 
slave? But some say, "The slaves can be set free twenty 
or thirty years hence." Ah ! wiU men have less wants then ? 
more justice and humanity then than now ? No. Again, 
if it is right to liberate slaves fifty years hence, the right is 



54: ALVAN STEWART. 

the same ncrv7, for there will be human beings in the world 
then, who will claim the slaves by a long line of descent, 
who will have as many wants to supply with slave labor as 
men have now. The sun will shine as hot, the rice-lands 
w^ill be as unhealthy as now. 

ABSTKACT SLAVERY. 

But we are told by our enemies they love the slaves as 
well as w^e do ; and then, with the next word, insult and 
abuse us for telling the world his wrongs, or attempting any 
redress. Mr. S. said he confessed that this was a new mode 
of manifesting an equality of love. But perhaps we do not 
understand our opponents ; they may mean that they hate 
slavery in the abstract, but love it in detail. Or perliaps 
they mean that they hate the abstract slavery and mean to 
destroy abstract slavery, by hating all wiiite men who are in 
favor of its abolition. Perhaps they hate slavery in the 
abstract, but love the man who causes it in detail so w^ell, 
that abstract hatred for one purpose is pure love for another. 
A man might as weU say that, abstractly, he hated murder, 
adultery, swearing and steaHng, but that he loved the mur- 
derer, adulterer, swearer and thief. Away with northern 
Jesuitism, which is opposed to abstract slavery, but in favor 
of its continuance, and ready to kill any one who wishes to 
change the present posture of slavery, as it practically exists. 
Oh, shame ! hast thou not a new blush for such conscience- 
ruining sophistry ? 

The same ingenious and fatal distinction has been taken by 
the wretched metaphysicians, who were willing to barter Ameri- 
can liberty to get gold and power, on the subject of free dis- 
cussion the summer past. 

Anti-abolitionists at the North say they believe in free dis- 
cussion in the abstract, and will not aUow it to be drawn in 



HIS FIRST PUBLISHED SPEECH AGAINST SLAVERY. 55 

question. But this means, as we find it interpreted and 
translated in the Dictionary of Daily Experience, that each 
man may discuss slavery, or anything else, in the silent 
chamber of his own heart, but must not discuss it in pubhc, 
as it may then provoke a syllogism of feathers, or a deduction 
of tar. An abolitionist may have the abstract right of dis- 
cussion, but it must be disconnected with time and place ; — 
if a majority of his neighbors differ with hun, there is no 
place ichere^ or time when^ he may discuss. This abstract 
discussion requires an abstract place and abstract time ; the 
abstract place must mean the solitude of the Avilderness, or 
loneliness of the ocean ; and the abstract time must mean 
some portion of the^<25^ or future, as it is never the present. 
The liberty of an abolition press is to be silent ; the liberty 
of conscience for an Abolitionist is to think to himself; or else 
to think like his slavery-loving neighbor, or stop thinking. 

DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 

The threat of dissolving the Union is the universal medicine 
for every political difficulty at the South. One day Georgia 
threatens the dissolution, on account of her Indian territory, 
gold mines, and State jurisdiction, and the missionaries ; then 
again the poor Union was to be dissolved by the post-office 
robbing State of South Carolina, to vindicate the beauties 
of nullification. 

Then again, this Union was to have been dissolved m 
1828, 1830, 1831, 1832, at four distinct periods within a 
short space, because the tariff laws were not made to suit 
certain slave States ; but the noble Union held together ; 
we did not hear of a single rafter or brace flinching, in 1835. 
The Union is to be again dissolved and charged in account 
current to aboUtion. The joke of it all is, that northern men 
profess to be frightened to death every time a negro-driver 



56 ALVAN STEWART. 

cries " dissolve the Union — dissolve the Union?'* As well 
might a man who lived in a powder-house, every time he 
became angry call for firebrands ! 

Let southern men dissolve this Union if they dare / slavery 
would then take care of itself, and its masters too ; — in one 
little month both w^ould become extinct. No ! oh, deceived 
northerner ! the southern man will be the last to dissolve this 
Union ; by it he expects to enjoy his slaves, without it he 
cannot, one day. But the wily politician of the South has 
discovered the ghost that never fails to frighten the North, 
and the North has been kept in a political sweat for the last 
ten or twelve years, for fear the men, who could not exist as 
slaveholders without this Union, would dissolve it. 

It seems dissolution is threatened by the South, unless 
thirteen free States disfigure and disgrace their statute 
books with bloody laws to protect slaver;^ forbidding Aboli- 
tionists to speak, write or publish anything against slavery, 
or petition for its abolition in the District of Columbia, under 
heavy penalties ; the despotism of which laAvs would so far 
exceed any in Russia or Turkey, that Nicholas, and the 
Grand Seignior, w^ould recoil w4th instinctive abhorrence, 
from so foul an insult to our common humanity. So it is not 
enough that eleven States must bend their backs under the 
shameful load of slavery, with statute books blushing for the 
wrongs done by man to man, which all the unfathomed 
waters of the great deep could not wash away ; but the 
tongues of northern men, on the subject of slavery, must 
cleave to the roofs of their mouths, and the indicting hand 
be palsied in giving the world a history of the negro's woes. 
Mt countrymen, ye sons of the pilgrims, the tyrant is 
at your doors, liberty is bleeding, liberty is dying, 
slavery has robbed you of the liberty of discussion, of con- 
science and the press. Armed mobs are to do the work 
of the slaveholder, till the legislature obeys his mandate. 



HIS FIRST PUBLISHED SPEECH AGAINST SLAVERY. 57 

Then read from your own statute books your doom ; you 
are a slave without his privilege ! Had the six hundred 
deleo;ates, freemen, now before me, been deterred from meet- 
in"- this day, from fear, it would have been worse than in 
VAIN, that a Warren fell, a Montgomery bled, and a 
Lawrence expired. 

You, for this moment, are the representatives of American 
liberty ; if you are driven from this sacred temple dedicated 
to God, by an infuriated mob, then, my brethren, wherever 
you go, liberty will go ; where you abide, liberty will abide ; 
when you are speechless, liberty is dead. 



3* 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOV. MARCY, 

FEBRUARY, 1836. 

I VENTURE to introduce to your consideration a rather 
surly child of mine, which I intend to send to Governor 
Marcy to nurse. A. S. 

To William L. Marcy, Esq., 

Governor of the State of New York : 
What you have written for the public eye in your late 
message on the subject of abolition, will be answered. The 
state of mind under which you labored, in this part of your 
message, it is to be hoped is rather its official state than its 
private and ipdividual. For it is hardly to be believed that 
an individual, moving vmder such a weight of error and sus- 
taining such a burden, Avould be equal to the discharge of 
the common duties of life, where truth and tranquillity 
of mind are so often required. But how much error, preju- 
dice and misrepresentation you are enabled to carry before 
an abused public, it shall, in part, be the business of this 
communication to show. Your duty, as far as the Constitu- 
tion may be your rule, is to communicate to the legislature, 
the condition of the State, and recommend such matters as 
you deem expedient. 

The Constitution contemplates that you should submit 
facts to the legislature, or your conclusion from them. You 
write like most men who have a given conclusion prepared 
before they know the facts from which it should come, or 
without regard to fact. No matter, with this class of writers, 
what may be the distance between fact and assertion, for 

58 



EESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 59 

they appeal to their imagination for their facts, and to their 
prejudices for their conclusion. You seem not to be aware 
that you were born and live in an abolition age ; that 
in the last 30 years more has been done for the abolition 
of slavery than before, in the long and eventful existence 
of this world. But one would suppose, from your message, 
some new combination in crime, some hideous monster had 
arisen, so wonderful in its character, so powerful in its opera- 
tions, that it will require in its extermination -the loss of the 
liberty of the press, of conscience, discussion, and of the 
inviolability of the mail. One darling object of the abolition 
part of your message is, to create a body of public odium 
against a portion of your fellow citizens, and from your offi- 
cial height to hurl the missiles of insult and abuse, till your 
virulence ceased from the labor more tired than satisfied. 

THE CRIME OF ABOLITIONISTS. 

You have charged your fellow citizens with high crimes 
and misdemeanors ; crimes which have made the gibbet their 
homes, the guillotine their companion, the gallows their 
elevation. 

The crime of these abolitionists, as you know, in its length 
and breadth, height and depth, is a belief that slavery is 
wrong, and ought immediately to come to an end, and that 
they take the liberty of telling the world so ; and endeavor 
to make others think like themselves. You know, as dis- 
connected with the present Presidential question, that every 
ninety-nine men out of one hundred, at the North, if put on 
their oaths, would swear that they considered slavery a 
wrong or a sin, and that they believed it ought immediately 
to terminate. 

This is the feeling of thirteen of the twenty-four States and 
is the essence of abolition. There are a few aristocrats at the 



60 ALVAN STEWART. 

North, whose consciences are unaffected by the unspeakable 
wrongs done the slave, who would, with yourself and Gov- 
ernor McDuffie, agree that domestic slavery is the true foun- 
dation of the social edifice. As much as you may affect to be 
surprised to find your sentiments so fully known, it will be 
proved from your late message before this communication is 
finished. If ever a society should be formed in South Caro- 
lina or Louisiana to perpetuate slavery, you may expect, at 
their first meeting, a resolution will be passed conferring on 
you an honorary membership in the most flattering language. 
I believe it would pain you from your inmost soul if you 
believed the efforts of the Abolitionists should be rewarded, 
in the next five years, with universal emancipation. 

VOICE OF THE FATHERS. 

You profess with many of the slaveholders to admire 
Thomas Jefferson as a sort of Moses who led the people of 
this land out of the wilderness ; he said he trembled for his 
country, when he remembered that God was just, and in a 
servile war that no attribute of the Almighty could be found 
to aid the white man. In sentiment, Thomas Jefferson was 
an Abolitionist. ^ 

Patrick Henry, Luther Martin, and William Wirt were 
believers in aboUtion doctrines and proclaimed them to the 
world. Such men could not exist with their sentiments sup- 
pressed, where the happiness of millions was concerned. 
The late John Jay, one of the triumvirate of the Federalist, 
and governor of this State, was an AboHtionist, in the largest 
sense of the word. Benjamin Franklin, not unknown to fame, 
was an Abolitionist. The men who composed the first Con- 
gress which ever met, in 1774, recommended that the slave- 
trade should cease in the December after; were not these 
men Abolitionists ? 



RESPONSE TO TUE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 61 



ENGLAND'S GLORY 

Clarksoii, Wilberforce, Iluskinson, Canning, Lord Broug. 
ham, O'Connell, and Earl Grey were Abolitionists / those 
intellectual giants who led glorious England, at the cost of 
one million dollars, to destroy slavery in her dominions ; yes, 
the year 1833 shows you England expending by a single act 
of legislation, m behalf of suffering humanity, more than all 
the other legislatures in the world have done. England, 
proud and noble old England, on whose dominions the sun 
never sets, whose rule one hundred and fifty millions obey, 
one-fifth of the human race, is a mighty nation of Abolition- 
ists ; and if every page of the works of England's great dead 
were torn from the libraries of the world, and every monu- 
ment of her glory in arts and arms forever destroyed, save, 
oh ! save her the act of legislation of 1833, by which 820,000 
slaves were emancipated at the cost of $100,000,000. 
She would then stand alone in that sun of glory which would 
never set. 

Were Jefferson, Henry, Martin, Wirt, Jay, Franklin, 
Clarkson, Wilberforce, Hu'skinson, Canning, Brougham, Grey, 
O'Connell, and England's millions, all fanatics, and reckless 
incendiaries ? For these English Abolitionists are as much 
like American, as truth is verity. 



THE ABOLITION AGE. 

But, sir, I will give you more abolition, and show you that 
you are so far behind, as to be out of sight of the march of 
events, if you do not discover this to be the abolition age ; 
and if there is one thing more than any other, on which the 
Americans and Europe, with the different governments of 
which they are made up, have acted in the last twenty years 



62 ALVAN STEWAET. 

in harmony, it has been in the abolition of slavery and in ex- 
pressing the universal abhorrence of the trade. Bonaparte, 
in 1815, on his return from Elba, declared himself an Abolition- 
ist, and by decree forbid Frenchmen being engaged in the 
slave trade. 

In 1817, Louis XVIII. became an Abolitionist and ratified 
the act of Bonaparte. Spain, in December, 1817, declared 
the slave trade should cease after May, 1820 ; and thus Fer- 
dinand VII. became affected with abolitionism. Portugal, in 
1818, abolished this trade north of the Equator. 

Holland, Prussia, Denmark, and Russia, expressed their 
abhorrence about the same time. These several decrees of 
abolition by the several countries of Europe, were hastened, 
and probably accomplished, in obedience to a general reso- 
lution, iDassed by the holy alliance, which Congress of Sove- 
reigns met at Vienna in 1815, and from the irrepressible feel- 
ings of common humanity, and with a view to the drawing 
an odious comparison between their monarchical sentiments, 
without negro slavery, and our republican government with 
it, declared that the voice of the civilized world demanded 
the universal abolition of African slavery, in all its connec- 
tions with that ill-fated continent. 

Abolition has an abiding home, from the pillars of Hercules 
to the regions of eternal ice : in the nobleman's bosom, in the 
palace of kings, in the Congress of sovereigns. The empire 
of Mexico, with as many slaves of negro and Indian as this 
nation contains, abolished slavery, in the last twenty years ; 
this is an empire of Abolitionists. Hayti is a volcano of aboli- 
tionism, warning the world, when men have come from 
slavery to freedom, to never attempt their reduction a second 
time. What are all those mighty republics on both sides of 
the Andes and Equator but empires of pure abolitionism ? 
Brazil, it is believed, stands alone, in the crime of slavery ; 
excepting which, through the vast plains of the tropics, no 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCT. 63 

slave is seen working in the light of the sun, where nature, 
attired in her grandest costume, looks down from Chimbo- 
razo, the throne of her majesty, while the voice of liberty 
commanded the slaves of mammon's slaves to come from the 
bowels of the mountains, the deep mines of the earth, from 
misery's home, from three hundred years of bondage, to 
equality, liberty and law. These, also, are the empires of 
abolitionism. The Abolitionists of the United States have, in 
the Empire of Mexico, South America, Hayti, and the coun- 
tries of Europe, which in the last thirty years have manifested 
their disposition to be AboHtionists, no less than two hundred 
and fifty millions, or one-third of the human family, being the 
whole of the civilized and Christianized world, except a part 
of my own dishonored and disgraced country. But this is 
not all the capital with which we, insulted Abolitionists, have 
to set up business. We think we have a large amount 
of abolition stock garnered up in the hearts of thirteen free 
States of this republic ; yes, we believe we have magazines 
of this explosive substance, in the sad regions of slavery, trea- 
sured in the trembluig hearts of Christian masters, who 
remember that God is just. We have five hundred abolition 
societies, one hundred and fifty of which have been added 
siuce the outrage of Utica. This is abolitionism dwindling ! 
so you try to deceive the South till after the ides of Decem- 
ber, 1836. The voice of these five hundred societies will 
ring in your ear and the slaveholder's till there is not a slave 
in America. It is the voice of Mexico, the voice of South 
America, the voice of Hayti, the voice of all Europe, the voice 
of the age, the voice of the world, the voice of Almighty 
God. 

Yet, sir, you have had the weakness to echo back the 
tyrant's yell, and call that voice when it has been sounded 
by your constituents, the voice of recklesness, the voice of 
fanaticism, the voice of the incendiary. We find you medi- 



64 AI.VAN STEWART. 

tating a stab at the Constitution you have sworn to protect. 
We find you telling the legislature in that message, that you 
have no doubt they possess that attribute of State sove- 
reignty, which has the i^ower to silence this voice of abolition- 
ism forever. 

SURRENDEKED POWERS. 

You say, with great cunning in your logic, that the legisla- 
ture must possess it, because this State has not surrendered 
the power to the General Government. A strange argument 
to fall from the lips or pen of a man bred a lawyer, once a 
judge and now a governor. Upon that principle the legisla- 
ture might appoint a king to rule the State of New York ; 
because the people of the State never delegated the power 
to the General Government of making a king, therefore it 
must be reserved to the legislature, who, if they have not 
power to make a king, it would prove the State was not a 
sovereign and independent State, and was destitute of the 
attributes of sovereignty. The people of this State have 
never surrendered the trial by jury to the control of the 
General Government, therefore, according to your reasoning, 
the legislature have a right to abolish it in all cases. For if 
they could not abolish it, there would be a Avant of sove- 
reignty. The right to take private property for public pur- 
poses, without compensation, has never been surrendered to 
the General Government, therefore the legislature of this 
State have the right. If the Roman Catholic religion should 
be found disagreeable to the eleven slave States, and they 
should make a great outcry against their ceremonies and 
ritual, and threaten to split the Union, unless the State of 
New York passed laws to banish or punish with death, all 
professors of the Roman faith, you would say with the same 
propriety you have now done in relation to the abolitionists, 



RE6P0NSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCT. 65 

that this State had never delegated to the General Govern- 
ment the power of suppressuig or regulating religion, there- 
fore the legislature has the power of abolishing the Roman 
Catholic religion, with a penalty of death for disobedience ; 
for if the legislature has not this power, the State lacks an 
attribute of sovereignty, which cannot be, when that attri- 
bute is necessary for preserving peace with our neighbors. 

Into such unfathomable depths of absurdity your zeal to 
serve the slaveholder has precipitated you. You forgot the 
very Constitution from which you derived your authority to 
make your message. You forgot that, whether powers are 
delegated to the General Government or not, we have a Con- 
stitution restrammg you, the judiciary and the legislature, 
from the exercise of certain powers forbidden to be used 
under any circumstances whatever. 

There is a class of rights of the most personal and sacred 
character to the citizen, which are a portion of individual 
sovereignty, never surrendered by the citizen, in coming into 
the compact of civil society, either to the State or General 
Government, and the constitutions of the States and Union 
have told the world, after enumeratmg them, that there is a 
class of unsurrendered rights, which the citizen refused, in 
making the compact, to throw into the mass or common 
stock of surrendered rights for legislative discretion ; and 
the legislatures of the States and Union are forbidden by the 
constitutions of the States and Union from touchhig those 
unsurrendered rights ; no matter in what disj:ress or exigency 
a State may find itself, the legislature can never touch those 
unsurrendered rights as objects of legislation. We may sup- 
pose the citizens of this State saying at the time the Consti- 
tution was formed, as we learn from the Constitution itself, 
" we will not submit all the rights we possess in a state of 
nature to the discussion of legislative action ; they are too 
sacred, too liable to abuse, they are a part of our personal 



6Q ALVAN STEWART. 

sovereignty, which we will never submit to the will of 
another, and we here mark these personal reserved rights 
of individual sovereignty in the constitution of the State of 
New York. • 

" We will never surrender the free exercise and enjoyment 
of religious j^rofession and worship ; without discrmiination 
and preference, it shall be allowed in this State to all man- 
kind." 

2d. And the following are the words of our State consti- 
tution which you had forgotten, or hoped the Abolitionists 
had : " Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish his 
sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of 
that right ; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge 
the Hbcrty of speech or of the press." 

The 8th section of the lih article of our constitution 
shows you and the world that the people of this State never 
surrendered the liberty of speech, discussion, or the press to 
the legislature. Oh, what scenes of abuse would have been 
played ofl' before this world, if licensed presses, gagged dis- 
cussion, and mail inquisitors had been tolerated ! And we 
should have seen such laws passed in this State by a party 
who had the ascendency, if the constitution had not forbid- 
den it, by which one half of the community could neither 
speak, write nor publish anything of their adversaries, imder 
the pain of indictments, fine and imprisonment. We infer 
this from the nature of man, for those arguments which 
reason cannot answer, force has often attempted. We see 
you willing (in case Abolitionism continues to hold up its 
head), in subserviency to slave dictation, to leap the barriers 
of the constitution, and advise the legislature to do the same 
act, and seize upon the liberties of speech, discussion and the 
press. Yes, you profess your wiUingness to make slaves of 
the Abolitionists, load them with chains and cover them with 
disgrace, trample on the ruined Constitution of your country, 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 67 

to purchase the haughty smile that may play over the 
features of that despot who owns five hundred slaves, as he 
sees the Empu-e State wallowing in the mire of tyranny, and 
bowing down its head in fearful trepidation before the unre- 
lenting cruelties of slavery and the boisterous howls of des- 
potism. You may lay the axe to the root of the tree of 
liberty, you may cut it down, so that liberty of speech, dis- 
cussion, and the press shall be laid in one common grave ; 
this is the course adopted by mobs, in anticipation of your 
legislative recommendation ; by those mobs which have dis- 
honored your administration, and have nearly overwhelmed 
the repubUc ; let them cheer you and the makers of those 
laws ; but be assured those laws when passed will be 
treated with scorn and contempt, and their execution, when 
attempted, will be written in blood. 

ABOLITIONISTS ABOVE-BOARD. 

Abolitionists have nothing to conceal ; their actions are 
done on the house-top, their progress is under the eye of the 
world, their march is in the face of the sun, they have no 
community to abuse and mislead, they have no mobs to 
inebriate and flatter, they have no support but religion and 
humanity, they have no power but the opinion of the civi- 
lized world and the voice of eternal truth ; they have no 
auxiliaries, but everlasting justice, and enlightened con- 
science ; they have no prospect of success, but in the inability 
of eleven slave States to resist their own good, and brave the 
withering scorn of an insulted world. 

You seem to sneer at " the potency of abolition arguments 
to instruct a slaveholder in his duty." You assert that the 
slaveholders understand and practise the rights and duties 
growing out of civil and pohtical liberty, as well as the 
citizen of the North. Is it so, governor ? Then you ap- 
prove of Governor McDuffie's message, who asserts slavery 



68 ALVAN STEWART 

to be right, and the pillar of the social edifice ; and what 
would incline one to have no donbt, that at heart you love 
slavery like a southerner, you do nowhere in your turgid 
message, even insinuate that slavery is wrong, or express the 
feeblest desire it should come to an end. The fair interpre- 
tation, in the judgment of charity, is, that your message 
Avas intended as an artful indorsement of all the bold and 
horrible doctrines of McDuffie's message, by which two and 
one-fourth miUions of human beings are to toil under the mer- 
cies of the lash, from the cradle to the grave. And you, sir, 
educated in the suushine of New England's moraUty and 
abhorrence of slavery, have for a mess of slaveholding presi- 
dental pottage, proved traitor to the rights of man, and in 
defiance of reason and conscience, thrown yourself into the 
putrid and cancerous embraces of slavery. 

You have published the bans of your marriage to slavery, 
in a message to the legislature of this State — what will be the 
fruits of your elevated alliance it requires neither second 
sight nor a prophet to tell ; it will be dishonor and unmeasured 
regret. 

MOBS, THE PANACEA FOR ERROES OF OPINION. 

You say, " I rely on the influence of pubUc opinion to 
restrain the misconduct of citizens of a free government, 
especially when dkected with such unexampled energy and 
unanimity to the evils under consideration, and perceiving 
that its operations have thus far been salutary^ I entertain the 
best hopes that this remedy itself will entirely remove the 
evils or render them comparatively harmless." 

Thus we have your solemn indorsement of all the mobs 
which have, or may hereafter, disgrace your administration ; 
all the mobs which by violence may drive the freemen of this 
State from their own houses and churches, while discussing 
the questions as to the evils of slavery, and the best manner 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MAROY. 69 

of terminating those evils — yes, these mobs are what you 
call a " sound and enlightened public opinion," headed by 
some half-a-dozen minions of slavery, your friends, leading 
them on with clubs, stones, brick-bats, the dregs of community 
under the influence of liquor, maddened by your street orators, 
at sentiments charged on Abolitionists they never entertained, 
opmious they never advanced, projects they never harbored. 
Then the mob will advance upon the house of silence, order, 
sobriety, philanthropy and prayer, and with all sorts of 
screams and yells, throw missiles and break doors and 
windows, with oaths, blasphemies, swearing vengeance while 
they rush into the house hke famished tigers, and drive with 
violence and blood the inmates therefrom, while they tear the 
Bibles and psalm-books in tatters, threatening instant death 
to some, and violence to all ; the whole night after being spent 
in drunkenness and debauchery, while the village or city is 
horror-struck by the violence, misrule and uproar. 

This is your enlightened public opinion, which you and the 
minions of slavery have brought to bear on Abolitionists the 
past year, which you so highly approve — and hope will still 
be employed. Is this the governor of the State of New 
York, who is the leader of mobs by a public approval in his 
message of 1836 to the legislature of this State? A mob, 
which all men but yourself, w^ho have dared to write on the 
subject, have considered a greater evil than any possible one 
they could be invoked to remedy, you have selected as one 
of the most efficient and salutary means of correcting errors 
of opinion. The mobs of 1835 have done more to destroy 
the confidence of the friends of liberty, in a republican form 
of government, than all the untoward events which have 
happened since the settlement of America. 

But I need not pause to inform a statesman of the opera- 
tions of a machine, which he has selected as the leading 
executive organ of his administration, a remedy so salutary 



70 ALVAN STEWAET. 

in its nature, so healthy and vigorous in its effects, in dis- 
lodging error from the human mind, being especially calcu- 
lated for this end from its moderation in action, its wisdom in 
the selection of its arguments, the urbanity with which they 
are enforced — being only equalled by the conclusiveness of 
the logic employed to illuminate a mind lost in the labyrinths 
oi fanatical incendiary recklessness, which means, to wish a 
slave a fi*eeman, and instead of a brute for a master, that he 
may have the law. 

You suppose your new discovery to be a universal panacea 
in government. If men are wrong in their notions on the 
subject of religion, or do not think like a majority of their 
neighbors, let a mob go and burn their houses or barns ; 
that will make them think like the majority ; or if the minority 
should discuss their opinions in their own houses or churches, 
let the mob in upon them with a flood of brick-bats ; they 
will see the errors of liberty of speech and free discussion, 
and repent of it in the awfulness of silence. 

A stone sent against a man's head by a mob, is the short 
and improved mode of introducing truth in the place of false- 
hood. Do I need an authority to sustain this position ? I 
will cite to you the governor of New York's message to the 
legislature of New York, in January, 1836. If a man is 
affected with philanthropy, or love to his fellow man, let a 
mob of tigers lead him by a rope around his neck, and choke 
him till he is black — he will see his mistake. If a man has 
seen that passage of Holy Writ, by which we are com- 
manded, *' Whatsoever things ye would that men should do 
unto you, do the same thing to them," let the individual be 
taken by a mob, tarred, feathered, and then be carried two 
miles on a sharp rail with a string of cow-bells hanging round 
his neck. This is Governor Marcy's medicine for a' mind so 
obstinately diseased — and he hopes that, by such a course, 
this fanatic will read his Bible in this way, " Whatsoever 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCT. 71 

you would not that men should do unto you, do that unto 
them:^ The grand benefit of this scheme, when carried out 
in its fullest extent, is to save a community from the trouble 
or distraction of having two or more opinions on one sub- 
ject. By applying mob law, we need have but one opinion, 
on any subject from an oyster to a fixed star. 

It may become useful to have a military mob at the Capitol, 
to cut short i^rotracted discussion ; let the government origi- 
nate whatsoever laws the public welfare may require, and if 
Congress were taught a few wholesome rules of military 
mobism, they too have nothing to do but to think like the 
government ; and if any man is refractory, and wishes to 
discuss, let him be shot through the head with an ounce ball, 
and he will never think different from the government again, 
or discuss. Thus Congress might do all the business of the 
nation in the afternoon, and save the country much expense 
in sitting from December to July, employed in noisy dis- 
cussions and clamorous debate. 

ABOLITIONISM DYING. 

But, sir, in stating the fact that abolition is hastening to an 
end in this State, you are greatly mistaken, for since the Con- 
vention was broken up in Utica, by your mob-regulation, in 
administering one of their salutary lessons of rebuke, one 
hundred and fifty societies have been added to the Abohtion- 
ists. 

Governor, you are like some other men who state their 
wishes for facts, and are not able to distinguish between 
their meditations by day, and their dreams by night. 

But am I mistaken in supposing this part of your message 
was made to order, for transportation south of the Potomac, 
and was not intended for domestic use, but was intended 
as a New Year's present to your southern friends, therefore 
is not subject to the common laws of criticism, which require 



72 ALVAN STEWART. 

certainty enough to make it a relative to a probability ? Per- 
mit me to assure you, that the attempt of the mob at TJtica, 
to suppress free discussion by a convention of more than five 
hundred men, as respectable as any body of persons who ever 
met for the public good, on this continent, has been the direct 
means of adding thousands to the Abolitionists. 

Let me assure you further that your leading political friends 
in this vicinity, many of them, one year ago signed a petition 
to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; I mention this 
to prove, as conclusive evidence, the general abhorrence 
society, uninfluenced by extraneous causes, feels against the 
crime of slavery. I think he must be an unapt scholar in 
human aff*airs, who can draw any distinction between the 
crime of slavery, in the District of Columbia, or in the State 
of South Carolina. 

THE COXSTITUTIOX AND SLAVERY. 

You seem to assert that some section, article, or, if neither, 
the spirit of the Constitution of the Union, is violated in the 
crusade of Abolitionists against slavery. To redeem that 
instrument from the imputation thrown on it as perpetually 
upholding slavery has been the main cause of this communi- 
cation. What is there in our federal Constitution since the 
expiration of the 9th section of the 1st article in 1808, on the 
subject of slavery? For I admit that all the horrors of 
slavery were wrapped up in the 9th section of the 1st article 
which expired in 1808. Its words are these : "The migration 
or importation of such persons as the States now existing shall 
think proper to admit shall not be prohibited before 1808," 
which section, strange to relate, is made irrepealable by the 
Constitution-making power itself, by a clause in the 5th arti- 
cle. Sir, the Constitution itself, in providing for the short 
life of the 9th section, thereby impliedly admits the wrong 
which might be done under it, in taking the slave trade into 



BESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 73 

its arms for nineteen years, and covering it under its sanc- 
tions. Do you not know that under the soft and mild phrase- 
ology, *' The migration or importation of such persons as the 
States now existing think proper to admit, etc., from 1789 to 
1808," for the space of nineteen long years, not less than one 
million of the fathers and mothers of the present generation 
of slaves were stolen and kidnapped from Africa by virtue 
of the irrepealable 9th section of the 1st article? Yes, the 
South refused the benefit of this Constitution, and of the con- 
federacy, and were willing to forego all the blessings it con- 
fers, rather than surrender the bloody advantages of the slave 
trade for nineteen years. This reveals the secret, and shows 
which at that time they would have preferred, the atrocity 
of the slave trade, or the Union without it. And to bring 
the South into the measure of the Union and adoption of the 
Constitution, the l^orth were constrained, in theii* then dis- 
tressed condition, to accept the Constitution, on such bloody 
and cruel terms. What an instrument to hold up in the face 
of the sun in the presence of the civilized world ! 

The bonus or premium given by the North to the South 
for the adoption of the Constitution, as the sine qua non on 
the part of the South, was that the slave States for nineteen 
years should have the unforbidden right to crimson every 
river of Africa with the blood of her children, the right for 
nineteen years to make her valleys and mountains echo with 
groans of her kidnapped sons and daughters, the constitu- 
tional right for nineteen years to pillage, rob, ravish and 
murder her inhabitants, and by the light of their blazing 
homes, make midnight like noon, to pursue and overtake the 
afii'ighted and horror-struck inhabitants and load them with 
fetters, in a ship of the middle passage, many of whose bodies 
fattened the wake-pursuing sharks, while the men of the 
Carolinas stood upon the shore, to purchase the survivors 
under the irrepealable ninth section. 

4 



74 ALYAN STEWART. 

This expired ninth section of our Constitution, to our 
eternal dishonor, was the most solemn and deliberate insult 
ever offered to our common humanity, and is without a 
parallel in the long annals of human atrocity; but thank 
God — in 3 808 it came to an end. 

Since 1808, that instrument is free from the imputation of 
sustaining slavery, directly or indirectly ; and the man who 
should offer it as an authority to prove the perpetuity of 
slavery, ought to blush for his temerity. Its silence in the use 
of the word slave is a rebuke louder than a thunder peal, 
telling the world slavery should never exist by its authority, 
that if the offence was committed, for the first nineteen years 
of its existence, yet the absence of the word " slavery " was a 
protest against the offence, and an everlasting acknowledg- 
ment of the shame the instrument would have felt by its 
insertion. 

The Congress of the United States, in May 1820, to mani- 
fest the horror they felt, for the crimes committed under 
the 9th section of the first article of the Constitution, then 
expired, declared by a public law, that any American citizen, 
who should be guilty of kidnapping, or taking a negro from 
Africa (being the precise act tolerated by the Constitution 
from 1789 to 1808), should be declared o. pirate 2ind punished 
with death. Sir, is not the act of Congress of 1820, the most 
solemn rebuke ever found in the records of legislation, of the 
evils tolerated in the 9th section of the first article? 

The 3d section of the 1st article of the Constitution, for 
the purpose of fixing the basis of a representation in Con- 
gress, says that " to the whole number of free persons, in- 
cluding those bound to service for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons 
are to be added." This section, the friends of slavery con- 
tend is a constitutional compact, to uphold and maintain 
slavery ; I contend it proves the reverse of the proposition. 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVEKNOR MAECY. 75 

and is a section which expresses, in spirit if not in words, 
the abhorrence this Constitution has for slavery. The free 
States, in fixing a basis for a ratio of representation, include 
every man, woman, child, pauper, idiot, alien, criminal or 
maleflictor, in those States, under the word " free persons," 
in the first line quoted from the section. What is the argu- 
ment or fact insisted on by the slave States ? "Why, that 
under the word, "persons," their slaves shall be counted in 
fixing the ratio or basis of representation, as a counterpoise 
to the women, children, idiots, paupers, aliens and criminals, 
included under the words "free persons, in Massachusetts." 
The non-siaveholding States, or those who had but few slaves 
and were in a course of emancipation, saw their opportunity, 
which they did not fail to improve, to wit, that if slaves were 
to be counted as persons, in fixing the ratio or basis of rep- 
resentation, five slaves should count no more, in the enumer- 
ation, than three free persons ; which would be a continual 
encouragement, and, in fact, a premium to be paid in political 
poicer for the emancipation of the slaves, who Avould then 
swell in the count from three to five-fifths. If all the slaves 
were made free, in the slave States, those States would be en- 
titled to twelve more members of Congress than they now 
have. This is the amount of political power ofi'ered by the 
Constitution to the slave States, in case those States will 
emancipate their slaves. The language of this section of the 
Constitution is, slavery is Avrong, and you of the slave States 
are to be punished in the loss of political power, as long as 
you uphold it ; by abating the amount of your representation 
in Congress two-fifths upon this class of persons, it is intended 
to express the abhorrence the Constitution has against sla- 
very, by an abatement of your political power, until you set 
your slaves free. 

This is a constitutional premium in favor of human liberty. 

Suppose the Constitution had on its face forbidden the 



76 ALTAN STEWAKT. 

slaves to be taken into the account, in fixing a basis of repre- 
sentation. Would not this have been the strongest ex- 
pression possible against slavery ? If that would be the 
ejQfect of a total rejection of the slave enumeration, is not the 
argument the same in kind, if not in degree, which rejects 
two-fifths of the slave census? 

Thus the Constitution shows itself inimical to slavery, in 
that way which would most strongly tend to its abolition. If 
the slave had not been taken into the enumeration upon any 
principle, the bounty off*ered by the Constitution, for their 
emancipation, would have been forty representatives, in Con- 
gress, to which their numbers, when emancipated, would en- 
title them. The tone of political power would have been too 
strong for slavery itself, and would have burst its bonds. 

If this argument is sound when applied to a rejection of the 
whole number of slaves, it must be when applied to the re- 
jection of two-fifths; the diflference is only in degree; in the 
supposed case, the bounty paid for emancipation would be 
forty seats in Congress, whereas it now ofifers twelve or 
thirteen. The principle is the same. The Constitution is- 
neutral ; it leans many degrees in favor of liberty, and against . 
slavery as a system ; not barely in cold advice, but in holding/ 
up motives of political power for its abandonment. j 

The apologists for slavery at the North and South, who / 
wish to hang upon the skirts of the Constitution, and convert \ 
the temple of liberty into a cave of slavery, claim to find a « 
constitutional compact for slavery in the 2d section of the 
4th article of the Constitution, by which persons held to 
service under the laws of one State, escaping into another, } 
shall be delivered np, on claim of the persons to whom the ^ 
service is due. Though slaves may have been delivered up, 
who were even fugitives from one State to another, by virtue 
of this provision, yet, it does not follow, that this section was , 
necessarily created for such an object. 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 77 

No, sir, a man who should contract to work for another 
two years, or any other given time, an apprentice bound to 
his master, a principal fleeing from his bail, or a child from 
his parent, or a wife from her husband, would all fairly come 
within the scope of this provision of the Constitution, and 
fulfill its spirit and letter, without necessarily including or 
excluding fugitive slaves. And this section of the 4th arti- 
cle of the Constitution would be equally necessary as now, 
if there were not a slave in this land. The Constitu- 
tion would be clearly defective, Avithout such section, were 
there no slaves, for the surrender of the apprentice, the prin- 
cipal in case of bail, the Avife, the child, etc., fleeing from 
those persons to Avhom their services were due. Suppose 
there was a treaty between England and the United States, 
that England would surrender up all fugitive slaves fleeing 
to her dominions from the United States, to their owner, 
would that treaty be a bar to England's expositions to obtain 
from us the abolition of slavery ? No ! Strange would be 
the reply of the United States if she should say, " Ah ! Eng- 
land, by agreeing to surrender our fugitive slaves, you have 
covenanted slavery is right ; you therefore have barred your- 
self from censuring the practice; you have adopted it and 
made it your own ; the agreement to surrender is an agree- 
ment that slavery is an institution of Heaven and a pillar of 
the social system. You have no business to intermeddle, 
expostulate, or even to endeavor to convince, by arguments, 
that it is wrong." 

This would be called strange morality, and still stranger 
logic. The Constitution in many of its parts is nothing but 
a treaty between the then thirteen, now twenty-four States, 
doing that by a perpetual Constitution, which independent 
nations do by treaty. The second section of the 4th article 
is of this character, and does by no means sustain slavery, on 
its face or by necessity, but without the clause, if there was 



78 ALVAN STEWART. 

not a slave in the land, the States would be mvolved in con- 
tinual difficulties, in relation to those persons fleeing from 
one State to another. 

AMEKICAX SENTIMENT AND LEGISLATION. 

Tt shall be my business to show that, as far as this nation 
has acted on the subject of slavery, the nation is anti-slavery 
in its character, and abolitionist, as it concerns the great 
crime against man. So far as its opinions and sentiments 
are deducible from its laws, a brief review of national legisla- 
tion may be instructive in its deductions. For it is said the 
character of a people may be learned in their laws. This is a 
political axiom. 

The first Continental Congress which met in Philadelphia 
in 1774, expressed its deep abhorrence of slavery, and mani- 
fested its principles in a resolution of loud condemnation of 
the slave trade, by a resolution not to import or purchase 
any slave imported after December, in that year, and thus 
abolish the trade. 

2d. The Constitution of the United States refused to coun- 
tenance the slave trade after the first of January, 1808. 

3d. By the acts of Congress passed March 22, 1794, and 
May 10, 1800, citizens and residents of the United States 
were forbidden, under penalties, from engaging in the trans- 
portation of slaves from the United States to any other coun- 
try ; or from one foreign country to another foreign country, 
for the purpose of traffic. In fact, these States presented the 
moral absurd, on account of the 9th section of the 1st article 
of the Constitution of the United States. These two acts 
of Congress forbid the Am.erican citizen from being con- 
cerned in the slave trade everywhere, except he brought the 
slave to his oicn land. 

4th. By an act of Congress, passed 2d March, 1807, the 
slave trade was prohibited after the 1st of January, .1808, 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 79 

under a severe penalty, being the day the 9th section of the 
1st article expired. 

5th. On the 26th April, 1818, Congress passed a law, by 
which the penalties were increased for importing slaves. 

Gth. By an act of Congress, passed in 1819, armed vessels 
were authorized to go to the African coast and stop the 
trade, as far as our citizens were concerned, and seize the 
vessels of those who had slaves. 

'7th. By an act of Congress, passed 15th May, 1820, it was 
declared that if any American citizen, or any person for him, 
should land in Africa, and import a person therefrom, with 
the intent of making him a slave, or forcibly bring said per- 
son on board said ship, such citizen or person should be 
adjudged a pirate, and on conviction, suffer death. 

Thus we have no less than seven solemn expressions of the 
nation ; one a resolution of the old Congress, and six acts of 
Congress since the adoption of the Constitution. 

Thus we see public opinion, as the law, marching forward 
in a steady progress, from the simple resolve that it was 
wrong, through all the grades of ascending penalty, till the 
crime became piracy, and its punishment death. 

The principle on which these laws of the nation rest, is 
that slavery is a crime, perpetrated by him who deprives 
another of his liberty by dispossessing Mm of all right to the 
fruit of his own labor, or the benefit of his own poAvers, 
mental or corporeal. Can the wit of man show me any dif- 
ference in the extent or amount of injury done to a slave, in 
being stripped of all the rights which make him a man, 
whether it be done north or south of the equator, in this 
paraUel of longitude or that degree of latitude, on this side 
of the world or the other, in Africa, on the ocean, in Caro- 
lina or Vermont ? 

The injury done to him is one and indivisible, the same in all 
times and all places. To him all forms of government are 



80 ALVAN STEWART. 

alike, he can claim nothing from any ; the despotism of 
Turkey, the monarchy of France, the republic of the United 
States, find him nothing but a thbig bereaved of every 
natural or acquired right. No change changes his destiny. 
The slave is the same anywhere, everywhere, in all times, the 
same yesterday, to-day and forever. If so, how powerfully 
do these acts of Congress upbraid and reproach every slave- 
holder m this nation, and you, his apologist, with injustice. 

Those statutes are a moral indictment in which every slave- 
holder in this nation may find his name, with that of his apolo- 
gists included. If the lowest moan of the oppressed is heard 
and remembered in heaven against the oppressor, what must 
be the size of your offence against poor miserable humanity, 
to throw the weight of your official temporary consequence 
against the slave, by which he may be sunk lower in the 
mire, and be made an exile from the land of his fathers no 
less than from your cold bosom. 

Have not the northern States, in consenting to the 9th sec- 
tion of the 1st article for nineteen years, become " particeps 
criminis " against those, or the children of those, who were 
brought here by it ? Have we not a right to repent and 
remonstrate with our partners in guilt, who are now rolling 
in wealth on the unpaid labor of those beings, or their child- 
ren, brought here under the 9th section ? But you still 
point to the Constitution of the United States to uphold this 
ofience — you would fain make it confess itself the citadel of 
slavery. Is this Constitution that nondescript, in politi- 
tical science, with the words of liberty on its tongue, and 
republicanism in its mouth; is it that hag, "which palters in 
a double sense, and keeps the word of promise to the ear, to 
break it to the hope ?" Does it veil beneath its folds an 
eternal engagement to keep millions in the most hopeless 
bondage ? 

A rule of great benignity in the construction of a statute, 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 81 

for which we are indebted to that great legacy of wisdom 
bequeathed us by the common law, is, that where words in a 
statute admit of a double construction, that which is in favor 
of human liberty and justice is always to be adopted. 
Another rule derived from the same source is, that when 
there is doubt in the construction of a statute, the preamble 
of that statute may be resorted to as a key to unlock the 
mind and true intent of the legislature in the enactment of 
the law. Let us apply these principles to the Constitution 
of the Union. 

Is it to be believed or endured that a Constitution whose 
preamble proclaims to the world that it was made " for a 
more perfect union, to establish justice^ promote the general 
welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
o\xv posterity forever," is only a covenant of eternal injustice, 
with everduring misery to millions of our population ? If 
your construction of this Constitution, with that of the slave- 
holder's be right, the preamble should have been in these 
w^ords : " We, the people of the United States, in order to 
establish successful injustice and eternal tyranny over the 
millions of our black population, and to secure our own inde- 
pendence, welfare and prosperity as flxr as white men are 
concerned, do establish," etc. 

We liave the direct authority of the framers of the Consti- 
tution, that their object in the Constitution was to promote 
liberty and justice ; you and your southern friends by your 
construction say it was made to promote eternal injustice, and 
hopeless slavery to millions. Which shall prevail, your 
opinion or that of the men w^ho made it ? 

Could a stranger to our institutions find the time or section 
where slavery is sustained in the Constitution ? 

Would he find it in the 4th section of the 4th article, which 
guarantees to every State in the Union a republican form of 
government ? 

4* 



82 ALVAN STEWART. 

"Would he select Louisiana, a State in which a majority of 
the inhabitants are slaves, and some of them with chains on 
their legs, with iron bands belting their waists and necks, 
with iron horns four feet in length fastened to those iron col- 
lars, to prevent the wearer's escape, in the cane-brakes, while 
others have a chain twenty feet long fastened to the belt of 
the waist, at one end, while the other is united to a sixty 
pound weight of iron, which the slave lifts and carries in 
advance, the length of his chain, and then returns and works 
up to it with his hoe, and thus repeats the operation as often 
as necessary, and when night comes, amidst rattling chains, 
cracking whips, and gory backs, they are marched into 
pounds, and again chained to staples in the wall, till the com- 
ing morn ? Yes, the 4th section of the 4th article is a stand- 
ing covenant against slavery. 

And it is impossible to fulfill that guaranty of a republican 
form of government while one half of the persons in a State 
are slaves to another. For, could Louisiana with 100,000 
white men and 200,000 slaves be said to have a repub- 
lican form of government, which regards all persons as equal 
in the eye of the law ? 

This section of the Constitution is violated by every slave 
State, and will never be honored or respected till universal 
emancipation takes place. 

For the very idea of a republican form of government holds 
all persons under it equal in the eye of the law. Can a State 
tolerating slavery be said to have a republican form of gov- 
ernment ? If so, the most stupid tyranny which ever governed 
the dolts of India may be called a republican form of govern- 
ment. An aristocracy might be called a republican form of 
government, for in that form the grandees are equal ; but the 
common people are not the equals of the grandees, in the 
eye of the law, any more than the slaves of Carolina are the 
equals of Gov. McDufEe in the eye of the law. 



RESPONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVERNOR MARCY. 83 



OMISSIONS IN THE MESSAGE. 

The time may not be far distant, when the ghost of this 
message will hamit your dreams of popularity by day and by 
night, and show its spectral form astride every path of your 
future advancement. The time may not be far distant, when 
your repentance may be too late, for lending your official 
message as an indorsement of all the mobs by which your 
administration has been sullied, by w^iich the dignity of the 
State has been dishonored, which will draw down upon you 
the reproaches of an insulted people ; while you have barely 
firmness to resist the myrmidons thirsting for William's blood 
in Alabama, while in eifect you beg pardon of Governor Gale 
for your refusal to deliver him up. You might as well have 
sent an apology for not selling the sovereignty of the State, 
as you had conveyed that to the mobs. You can overlook 
the insult done to the sovereignty of New York by slave 
States in offering $50,000 to kidnap one of our principal citi- 
zens, and carry him from his home to be sacrificed to the 
orgies of slavery, in a foreign land. Such insults on sove- 
reignty as these, cannot draw forth a line of reprehension 
from your pen. 

Neither did you know the State was insulted in her 
sovereignty, w^hen you saw 50,000 of your fellow-citizens 
indicted under general ^^resentments of southern juries, 
charging your citizens to the amount of four hundred so- 
cieties of abolitionists, with the crimes of murder, robbery, 
arson, and holding them up as objects of odium to the 
civilized world. All this you bear with tameness, permitting 
the world to believe that the State over which you preside 
has hundreds of organized societies who are incendiaries, and 
whose object is to burn houses, cities and towns ; men who 
have made themselves obnoxious to the vengeance of the 
human race. 

Do you vindicate them, and point the world to the Consti- 



84 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

tution and laws of their country, which they have never 
violated ? No ; but you are torturing your invention to 
find how an act of an Abolitionist, which is right and consti- 
tutional in the State of New York, because people in other 
States do not Hke it, for that cause, may be punished as 
criminal here. 

Before you can render that criminal in Abohtionists, in 
foreign States, which is innocent at home, you must destroy 
your Constitution. What an insult to New York for Virginia 
to demand that New York shall violate her constitution, and 
turn the constitutional acts of her citizens into crimes, be- 
cause, forsooth, Virginia fears her own citizens in time may, 
by the force of reason and discussion, entertam the same 
opinion as New York, to wit, that slavery is wrong. Hunt 
the pages of legislation through the civilized world for your 
precedent, and your search will be as hopeless as your object 
is iniquitous. 

FREE SPEECH. 

Farewell to liberty, law and unsurrendered individual 
sovereignty, fenced by the most solemn constitutions, when 
the citizens of New York may not discuss, or print and 
cii'culate their sentiments on any moral problem, or any 
question of right and wrong, of liberty or slavery. As well 
might France call on the United States to apologize for the 
President's message, as for Virginia to call on New York to 
bow down to slavery in apologetic laws, in overthrowing the 
constitutional barriers erected for the defence of our citizens. 
If we obey one State, we ought in ci\ility to obey every 
State's request, so that we may have not less than twenty- 
three distinct tracks marked out for this State to pursue, or 
twenty-three masters. The State of New York says, I know 
my citizens have violated no duty and are acting within their 
constitutional limit; but the acts of my citizens are not 
approved by other States, and on the principle of interme- 



EESrONSE TO THE MESSAGE OF GOVEKNOK MARCT. 85 

diate or international law, to preserve peace and friendship 
with my neighbors, I must take away their constitutional 
rights, and instead of my being their master, my neighbors 
are to be their future governors, lords and judges. Virginia 
might as well ask for the title deeds to our sovereignty, and 
that our citizens should sign a perpetual indenture of appren- 
ticeship to her haughty State. The North have, in paying 
tribute to the word Jlnion^ consented to the insertion of the 
9th section of the 1st article, by which all Africa for nine- 
teen years was made a slaughter-yard for southern cupidity ; 
the North yielded the three-fifth slave representation ratio 
to the threat of severance by southern dictation ; the North 
admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave State, from the 
boisterous clamor of southern tyranny, that if the North did 
not yield, the Union should be rent; the North, in 1832 
and 1833, to the terrific cry of nullification and dissolution, 
sacrificed one thousand millions of northern industry, capital 
and property, in the destruction of the American system, to 
propitiate the slaveholder and save the Union. 

The last demand now made is under the stereotype threat 
of dissolving the Union, unless the northern States legislate 
by express direction of the South, and destroy liberty of 
speech, discussion, the press, and thirteen constitutions of 
thirteen States, in obedience to her surly despotism. 

Let the non-slaveholding States bcAvare that they do not 
insult the spirit of the age, dishonor the memory of the 
valiant dead, and make their posterity blush for the craven 
spirit of their ancestors. 

The time, sir, is at hand when the non-slaveholding States 
must act in a crisis of all that is dear to our citizens, and will 
prepare for the annals of the historian, a page of glory or 
disgrace ; and as that page shall be written, so will the destiny 
of the Republic be settled : if Slavery is in the ascendant, that 
page will be the Epitaph of Liberty. 



ADDEESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS 

OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 

As reported by a Comynittee appointed hy the first Annual Meeting of the 
New York State Anti-Slavery Society, of which Committee Alvan Stewart^ 
Esq., was Chairman, and which ivas unanimously adopted, October, 18S6. 

To rescue the helpless, to resist oppression, to elevate the 
despised, to combat despotism, to instruct and soften the 
conscience of the master, to make free, exalt, enlighten and in- 
vigorate the faculties of the slave, stand before the world, as 
the objects of prominent jjursuit by the New York State 
Anti-Slavery Society. "* 

What object so sublime, as that which abates the suiferings 
of man as a physical being, while it amplifies the undying 
powers, makes the individual conscious of the greatness of 
his origin, the superiority of his heaven-descended hneage, 
and his ultimate destiny beyond the oppressions of time, and 
the cruelties of a transitory world ? 

What is worthy the pursuit of a tenant of immortahty, 
except that which may place his own body, and that of his 
neighbor, in the best attitude to have the soul illuminated 
with ihe knowledge of itself, of its Author, its obligations to 
itself, to man, and to God ? 

But the question is asked every day, who is my neighbor ? 
Every human being, on whom the sun rises or sets, who feels 
the cold of winter, or the heat of summer, whether he is 
seated on the throne of power or languishes in the damps of 
the dungeon ; whether he is fed from the table of abundance, 
or eats his moldy crust under the shadow of a wall ; whether 
he be the owner of the rice, cotton and sugar fields of the 

86 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 67 

sultry South, or the naked, scar-marked, chain-loaded, whip- 
beaten, under-fed, and unpaid slave who cultivates them. 

No matter where he received his birth ; Avhether idolatry 
has forged its wretched chains for his mind, whether he be 
educated to lift his hand on the soUtudes of Africa, to strip 
others of what they have ; no matter how great the debase- 
ment of mind, even if lost in the mazes of Confucius' infidel- 
ity ; no matter how that mind has been defiled by the rust 
of superstition, in a succession of ages ; no matter with what 
fearful orgies of the midnight blaze and flowing blood, the 
sons of Christendom have robbed the black man of himself ; 
no matter how solemn the form by which the planter of the 
South, by bargain and sale, by written instruments drawn in 
conformity to the highwayman's code, may make out his 
title (yes, let him show his bond for human flesh) ; no mat- 
ter how bloody legislation may attempt to create title deeds, 
by which man may be sold to man ; no matter how solemn 
the form of the last will of the dotard, trembling on the con- 
fines of the grave, who endeavors to bind to another the 
slave who has served him through life's brief course; no 
matter how often he may begin his will, *' In the name of 
God, amen" — (Solemn mockery! God-insulting adjuration! 
Yes, let southern lawyers bring their 40,000 recorded wills, 
let us behold these scofiers now, in their noiseless graves, 
binding 500,000 human beings, to eternal slavery, calhng on 
God with an "amen" — "so might it be," to ratify what 
might raise a blush on a ruined archangel's cheek ;) no mat- 
ter for all this casuistry, this network of fraud, this inversion 
of truth ; no matter for all these things, the slave is stiU a 
man, our brother, and an inheritor of Eternity — he is still 
the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell 
among thieves ; and this Society is the Samaiitan, who will 
take him up, bind his wounds, and restore him to himself. 
Yes, if anything makes one nearer, and dearer, and more of 



88 ALVAN STEWART. 

a neighbor than another, it is because his helplessness and 
misery demand it, and we must obey the heavenly mandate. 
To enlarge the compass of action beyond the efforts of iodi- 
vidual benevolence, in behalf of the poor American slave, and 
form this Society, one year ago, brought together 600 of the 
choice spirits of this State, the sons of humanity, from the 
borders of Lake Erie, the hills of Montauk, the mountains of 
Delaware, the waters of Champlain, the banks of the Hudson, 
and the shores of Ontario. 

American Slavery is a pyramid of crime — a death shade 
thrown over this guilty land. Though we were driven from 
this temple of the Most High, dedicated to Him " who is no 
respecter of persons," by a mob of native Americans — whose 
principles on that occasion, were the same as those taught in 
the school of Dante, Marat, and Robespierre, yet we have 
reason to thank the Source of all good, that while these ene- 
mies of God and man intended it for our harm, it resulted in 
our good, in adding many thousands to our numbers. Under 
the sanction of the principles, embodied in the constitution 
of our Society, we are assembled in the same house, a second 
time, to publish to our countrymen, the secrets and move- 
ments of our Society, with our future intentions. These prin- 
ciples and mtentions are inscribed on the hearts of the benevo- 
lent, and make their home in the temple of eternal Justice. 
They are principles which are not depending upon the ebul- 
litions of a floating, unthinking mob, who will shout hosan- 
nas to-day, and crucifixion to-morrow ; whose minds are 
unfixed as the whirlwind, one day insulting Heaven and dis- 
honoring earth with fiendish shouts over prostrate humanity, 
while the next, they build temples to canonize the a^hes of 
the victims they have immolated, and then place in the 
highest niche of human remembrance, that man as philan- 
thropist, when dead, who, when living, was loaded with 
obloquy, and covered with reproach. These principles bind 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITTONISTS. 89 

in holy harmony a hand of philanthropists, who deride the 
scorn of the haughty, who love the lowest being invested 
with a never-dying mind, who move forward and upward 
against the descending stream of popular violence, carrying 
consolation and deliverance to the prisoner — unawed by the 
bold front of defiance, but upheld and cheered by the rewards 
of the final judgment ; when the master and slave, the scorner 
and the scorned, the oppressor and the oppressed, shall stand 
up for a final analysis of character, before the Judge, at 
whose presence the heavens and earth will flee away. 

To lend energy to truth, to give confidence to virtue, to 
be numbered with the feeble, to take seats with the humble, 
to divide our substance with the hungry, never to forsake the 
dumb, never to cease displaying the slave's wrongs to this 
guilty age, always to continue haunting the imagination of 
this slave-grinding nation, with the crimes of the past, the 
wickedness of the present, and the accountability in the 
future ; while at the same time we implore the Parent of the 
Universe to hear the cries of the millions of his helpless 
children, which are ascending day and night from the slave- 
cursed fields of southern despotism; are objects lying near 
our hearts. 

VIEW OF SLAVERY. 

Let us take a view of slavery, as it appears in masses, 
either for the purpose of seemg the amount of robbery com- 
mitted on slaves of this land, as a question of money; or the 
amount of brutal chastisement inflicted to obtain the labor 
performed ; and then let us examine briefly the constitutional 
power of Congress, to abolish the internal American slave 
trade, now prosecuted with most of the horrors which accom- 
panied the old African slave trade. 

There are at least 500,000 slaves in the slave States, each 
of whom, at the present prices of produce, earns, over and 



90 AT. VAN STEWAET. 

above his -Nvretched subsistence, $200 per annum, or one 
hundred millions of dollars. The other 2,000,000 of slaves 
we put down as earning no more than their miserable sub- 
sistence, which is, beyond a doubt, greatly undervaluing 
their labors. This calculation leaves the slaveholders in the 
receipt of a net income of one hundred millions of dollars, not 
one dollar of which belongs to the slaveholder, but every 
dollar ought to be the slaves'. To obtain this one hundred 
millions of dollars from the poor slave, there are inflicted at 
least, on an average, twenty lashes or blows on the person 
of each slave, which would not be inflicted were they not 
slaves, amounting to fifty millions of lashes on the two and 
a half millions of slaves, or, in other words, a blow is struck 
for every two dollars earned by the slaves. The fifty mil- 
lions of lashes is the return the slaveholder makes as a com- 
pensation for the $100,000,000 earned for the masters by the 
poor slaves. 

The united robberies, piracies, forgeries, counterfeit-money- 
passing, and thefts of the whole world for one year, will not 
equal the sura of which the American slaves are robbed 
annually. The American slave has been robbed every day 
for 200 years gone by, by a people whose chivalry consists in 
the generosity of that act. The fifty millions of lashes struck 
on the American slaves (which would not be if they were 
free) exceed all the acts of cruelty of the civilized and bar- 
barian world beside. Yes, the twelve slave States of 
America are the head-quarters of cruelty for the world ; the 
residence of duelling, the native land of Lynch law, where its 
professors reside and its scholars practise. These States are 
the asylum of piracy, made respectable by the sanctions of 
laAv, where, immortal minds are ruined, in the wholesale^ by 
c onstitutional edicts ; where the marriage contract is ex 
changed for wandering adultery. This is the land dedicated 
to amalgamation, where 500,000 mulattoes testify the affec- 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 91 

tion and honorable love existing between the master 'and the 
female slave. This is the land where fathers sell children, 
and brothers and sisters sell brothers and sisters. This is the 
same land whose clergy have found a curious edition of the 
Bible, sustaining these acts upon the authority of Divine 
commands. These are the lands where the instinct of the 
bloodhound is improved by pursuing, overtaking and revel- 
ling in human flesh. This is the chivalrous land, the inhabi- 
tants of which, for fear of insurrection, are pillowed on guns, 
pistols and swords ! Here are the great man, woman and 
child flesh markets of the world. Immortal souls are the 
merchandise of the auction room. This is the land where 
AboHtionists are threatened, defamed, and put to death ; this 
is the land which threatens the dissolution of the con- 
federacy ; this is the land of slaves. 



But it is sometimes asked what have Abolitionists done to 
terminate abuses so shocking, and outrages so insupportable ? 
If any cause could excite self-congratulation, and stimulate 
to noble and expanded exertions in behalf of the future, it is 
the cause of Abolition. What cause ever before in less than 
three years, in the face of obloquy, and a nation's opposition, 
was found able to organize between six and seven hundred 
societies, comprising the most elevated piety, the warmest 
philanthropy, the most distinguished talents, with untiring 
industry ? 

In the space of three years the attention of several State 
legislatures have been awakened. Almost a fifth of the 
time of the last Congress of the nation was consumed in the 
discussion of the lost rights of the slave ; and the gaze of the 
world has been fixed on this great struggle of sufiering 
humanity. 

If the cause of Abolition had secured nothing more than 



^ 



ALVAN STEWART. 



such ilniTersal attention, and such formidable combinations 
for its suppression, it would have been ground for the most 
devout thankfulness. But this is not all. The Abolitionists 
have measured swords with the slaveholder on several great 
questions, in their infancy, with entire success. 

SLAVEHOLDERS FOILED. 

The slaveholders of 1835 and 1836, demanded, 

1st. An expression of Congress, that it was unconstitu- 
tional to aboHsh slavery in the District of Columbia, and the 
Territories of the nation. But the slaveholders ^yere foiled: 
— Congress refused to utter that wicked sentiment ; and that 
refusal is equivalent to a verdict, exactly the reverse of what 
the slaveholders insolently demanded ; and it is an ac- 
knowledgment that Congress has the power to aboHsh slavery 
in the District and Territories. 

2d. That slaveliolders demanded that Congress should not 
receive the petitions of Abolitionists ; but Congress decided 
they would receive them. 

3d. The South asked Congress by law to gag the press, by 
a system of espionage to confer on the 10,000 deputy post- 
masters a power to peej) and jyri/ into every secret that passed 
through the mails, so as to exclude all anti-slavery written or 
printed communications, from a passage into the slave States. 
But this bill Congress, after solemn deliberation and long 
discussion, refused to pass, but passed, in favor of Aboli- 
tionists, a law, which is the converse of the slaveholders' de- 
feated bill. In the 3 2d section of the new post-office law of 
last winter. Congress has made it a penalty not exceedino- 
$500, and imprisonment not more than six months, and a 
removal from office, together with a disqualification to hold, 
forever thereafter, the office of post-master, to delay any 
letter, newspaper or package, on its passage to its destina- 
tion, or to refuse to transmit or deliver said letter, paper or 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 93 

package to its proprietor. This is all Abolitionists could ask, 
in order to redress such outrages as those at Charleston and 
New York last year. In fact, this law is powerful in its con- 
sequences, and no postmaster will dare delay the passage or 
delivery of the most " violent " anti-slavery pamphlet or 
newspaper a single minute, short of forfeiting his office, and 
subjecting himself to the penalty of a dungeon. 

No Abolitionist could have asked for a sterner law for his 
protection than Congress made in reply to the slaveholders' 
insolent demand. 

4th. The governors of many of the slave States loudly de- 
manded, by messages and special communications, directed 
to the free States of the North, that the legislatures of these 
States should violate their own constitutions, and set at 
naught their Magna Chartas, and pass laws forbidding the 
existence of Anti-Slavery Societies, suppress speeches or 
writings against slavery. But the free States refused to 
comj^ly with one iota of these demands. 

5th. Southern legislatures have, by resolutions, made the 
same request as their governors, and met with no better 
success. 

6th. The South have done homage to the Abolition senti- 
ment at the North, by keeping their slaves at home and not 
insulting our feelings by their presence the summer past, in 
such numbers as formerly. Two reasons have operated on 
them to do this: 1st. They felt ashamed to acknowledge 
themselves slaveholders by such palpable evidence. 2d. The 
fears of the slave's escape, or that the slave having been 
brought here by his master, would become free the moment 
be touched our soil. For the law for delivering up slaves 
applies to fugitives, and not to slaves brought here by their 
masters ; all of whom are free the moment their feet rest 
upon the soil of any free State, unless the slave is registered 
according to law. 



94 AX VAN STEWART. 

7th. The decision of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, 
one of the most distinguished courts for legal talent to be 
found in this or any other civilized land, has decided, the past 
summer, that all slaves brought into that State by their 
masters become instantly free : which i^roposition or decision 
is equally true of all the other free States. If this decision is 
not correct, a slaveholder might bring a gang of slaves with 
him here for six months at a time, and thus trample on the 
laws of the free States, as well as insult the feelings of all 
good men. This he cannot do without permission of the 
State given him by law. 

The decision of the court of Massachusetts will be found to 
be, with the argument which supports it, an important bul- 
wark of American liberty. If this decision be not sound law, 
this monstrous consequence must follow, that a free State 
would allow a foreigner or a citizen of another State, privi- 
leges denied to its own citizens. 

It has always been considered in the law of nations, that 
great comity was shown the citizen of another State, if he 
was put on an equal footing with the citizens of the country 
whose hospitaUty he enjoyed ; but to allow a Virginian to be 
followed by a train of trembling slaves, to this State, would 
be not only to place that individual above our own citizens, 
but also above the laws and institutions of the State itself. 
But as self-evident as this proposition seems, its assertion at 
this time, from so high a source, cannot but be regarded as 
one of the most cheering evidences in favor of the principles 
of abolition and humanity ; and, in fact, as one of the great 
landmarks in the career oi imiversal emancipation. 

The year 1836 will ever be remembered as a year in 
which Christian philanthropists in Great Britain extended 
their noble hands to our aid, in the most dignified expressions 
of kindness and sympathy. AYe cannot but regard the 
friendship of the great, the good, and the powerful in 



ADDKESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 95 

England, at this time, as one of the most cheering circum- 
stances to arouse the desj^onding, and sustain the true-liearted, 
amidst the persecutions of slaveholders, or the insults of their 
apologists. Nothing has more employed the attention of 
good men in England, the summer past, than in learning the 
nature and horrors of American slavery. To such a point of 
detestation has the slaveholder sunk in English estimation, 
that it is believed none of the first men of the southern States, 
who are slaveholders, would be admitted into good English 
society, where the fact was known, any sooner than persons 
who were smugglers, or engaged in the African slave trade. 

We should be much surprised, if the same course of treat- 
ment in coming years should not be pursued by the best class 
of society in the free States toward the slaveholders. 

It may be laid down, as indisputable, from the foregoing 
statements, that the slaveholders have been driven from every 
position they endeavored to occupy, and routed most disgrace- 
fully, on their own chosen field of battle. Yes, they have 
been beaten at all points, from their high-handed and wicked 
attempts to cut ofi* the slave's chance of escape from his 
chains. 

SOUTHERN CHIYALKT. 

Perhaps it is w^rong not to award what is even due to a 
chivalrous slaveholder. It must not be denied, and justice 
compels us to admit, that sixty slaveholders in Tennessee, in 
the summer of 1835, did surround, take, and arrest Amos 
Dresser, an Abolitionist — a hannless, talented young man, 
travelling through that State — and whipped him twenty lashes 
on the naked back, because he was a member of an Abolition 
Society in Ohio, and then banished him from the State. The 
chivalrous citizens of the State of Georgia, in the year 1836, 
surrounded, waylaid, and took a Mr. Kitchell, a citizen of 
New Jersey, a pious youth, a recent graduate of the Theolo- 



#6 ALVAN STEWART. 

gical Seminary at Princeton, travelling in the Sonth, on 
account of infirm health, upon the suspicion of being an 
Abolitionist (which it is since understood he was not) and 
tarred, feathered, and violently beat him, and expelled him 
from the State. Thus we see how glorious the laurels of 
chivalry appear in the victories won on the fields of Ten- 
nessee in 1835, and the no less auspicious campaign which 
filled the cup of Georgia's renown in 183G. 

The slaveholder the summer past, has been following his 
usual chivalrous pursuits — the recapturing of fugitive slaves 
in the free States — and in some instances has been successful 
in reducing to a second bondage, those who had been beyond 
chains and whips ten and fifteen years, by the aid of those sup- 
ple instruments of tyranny — the well paid constable and jus- 
tice of peace, whose consciences are more alive to an obedience 
to the requisition of the act of Congress for retaking fugitive 
slaves, than they are to the loudest calls of humanity. Yes, 
had the slave the same sum of money to pay the magistrate 
and constable for his escape, which the master pays for his 
judicial kidnapping, few fugitive slaves would ever cross 
Mason & Dixon's Ime a second time. 

Let the finger of this world's scorn be pointed to that oflUcer, 
judicial or ministerial, who shall lend himself to the slave- 
holder to reduce a man a second time to bondage, who will 
for the slaveholder's gold basely convert the writ of habeas 
corpus, the slave's passport to freedom, into a writ of eternal 
imprisonment, by which a slave is taken from the custody 
of liimself and equal laws, and delivered to an enraged and 
lawless master, from whom death can only discharge him. 

COLOR IX A QUANDARY. 

The amalgamation compound of the Anglo-Saxon and Afri- 
can blood adds annually 15,000 human beings to the slave 
population, in the shape of mulattoes, as a triumph on the part 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 97 

of the slaveholder over the supposed dignity of the white man, 
by making an intermediate landmark between the extreme 
castes. 

The slaveholder talks of sending the manmnitted slave to 
Africa as the land of his origin. What will he do with the 
mulattoes? Upon that jDrinciple, the poor mulatto must 
spend one year in Africa, and then one year in England, Ire- 
land, Scotland, France, Germany, or whereever, in Europe, 
the ancestor of his white American father came from ; so this 
compound of Europe and Africa must spend his life in a per- 
petual pilgrimage, in going from one continent to another, 
dividing and spending the remainder of his existence in the 
pursuit of the countries of his ancestor's origin. In fact, if 
the friends of the argument of hunting up the countries of 
remote origin of one's race, should think it too inconvenient 
for the mulatto, perhaps their humanity might be induced to 
allow them some intermediate island, as a half-way house, where 
they might rest themselves equidistant from ancestral origin. 

But what mulatto in the United States, who has come to 
the years of discretion, but has pitied the mother slave, who 
bore him, and cursed his white father. Yes, cursed him for 
his or her existence ; cursed him for giving him a body to 
ruin a soul ; cursed hmi for this body in which the unmortal 
soul withers ! Oh ! might the mulatto slave cry out, " what ! 
can I thank my white father for a body, which is not my own, 
which is but a thmg ! thank hun for that body which is 
exposed to every indignity, blows and abuse. Thank him for 
that body which my father, my brothers or my sisters, my 
nephews, nieces and even my grandfather, may sell under the 
auction hammer to pay the debts or buy bread-stuffs for 
members of the church, m the land of chivalry. Shall my 
father eat me indirectly by consuming what is given for me in 
exchange on a sale of my body? Strange Christianity! 
which can uphold such practices as ;hese !" 

5 



ALVAN STEWART. 



SLAVEIIOLDEES UNMASKED. 

The Abolitionists of the year 1836 have compelled the 
slaveholder to unmask himself and show the world his insin- 
cere heart, while heretofore he professed to regard slavery as 
an e\^l, and wished it might come to an end. This, they 
admit now to be false^ and that they regard slavery as a 
blessing, and the substratum of the social edifice ; as desira- 
ble for its own sake, and the best state of things of which the 
nature of human institutions admit, and they intend to perpe- 
tuate these blessings to future generations, securing their con- 
tinuance to the end of the world. 

THE UNION DISSOLVED. 

The slaveholders have dissolved the Union so far as the 
100,000 Abolitionists are concerned. No Abolitionist, how- 
ever distinguished he may be in the circles of learning, piety, 
talents, or philanthropy, can place his foot on slavery's soil. 
If he does, he sinks below the slave, into the grave, by the 
hands of lawless violence. All law is powerless in his 
defence. The Abolitionist stands alone. The federal com- 
pact yields no relief The slaveholders rush upon him with 
the ferocity of savage demons, and lynch him into eternity. 
This is the natural fruit of slavery. 

CONTINUED PIRACY. 

The same brute force, which the forefathers of the i^resent 
proprietors of slaves employed in the forests of Africa, at the 
dread hour of midnight, to reduce the slave to possession, is 
now used by their chivalrous descendants to maintain their 
jurisdiction over the descendants of the kidnapped Afri- 
can. 

The abolition of the old African slave trade was accom- 
plished by the passage of six difterent acts of Congress, from 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 9^ 

1807 to 1824, by which every succeedmg act increased the 
penalty for bringing a person into this country to make him 
a slave, until the punishment was death — the pirate's doom. 
The internal slave trade between the several States in this 
country violates the same principles of justice and humanity 
which were violated by the old African slave trade, now 
abolished under the penalty of death. 

What is more plain than the remedy for this glaring 
atrocity ? 

POWERS OF CONGRESS INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. 

The same words, clauses and sections of the Constitution, 
which gave Congress the power to abolish the African slave 
trade, give Congress the ability to pass a law to abolish the 
internal slave trade now carried on between the slave States, 
in defiance of the loudest cries of humanity. 

Congress has power given it by the Constitution to regu- 
late the commerce between the several States. What com- 
merce can be of so high a character, or so important in its 
consequences, as a traffic in human beings to the amount of 
more than 120,000 persons annually? More than double the 
amount ever imported from Africa before the abolition of the 
slave trade, amounting, in value, from fifty to sixty millions 
of dollars annually. 

Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the western 
parts of North and South Carolina, groAV negroes as an 
article of traffic for the more southern States. 

In fact, these States are supposed to receive as much 
money from abroad for their negroes sold to go out of their 
States, as for all other products exported besides. 

FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE. 

Let that same principle of humanity be the guiding genius 
of American councils, and abolish the slave trade between 



100 ALVAN STEWART. 

the States, which smote with uplifted and powerful hand, the 
slave trade with Africa, and slavery itself would die a natural 
death from its own oppressive weight in the slave-selling 
States, v/hile the abounding soils of the far South must, two- 
thirds of them, be cultivated by freemen or lie waste. 

FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE COMPARED WITH THE DOMESTIC. 

Did the South vote to abolish the slave trade with Africa for 
the meretricious purpose of monopolizing the slave market of 
the world, and creating one on the American soil, transcend- 
ing in the annals of its cruelty, all that Clarkson or Wilber- 
force has told of Africa's desolations ? Is it so ! Were 
northern statesmen and philanthropists sleeping at their 
posts in allowmg the southern States for twenty years after 
the adoption of the Constitution to ransack the coasts and 
interior of Africa, and tear from her her affrighted and 
screaming sons and daughters, to turn them into slaves, 
merely as seed, to lay and spread a broad foundation 
for a future slave trade on the shores of America? Is 
all this seeming repentance for the wrongs done ill-fated 
Africa, by which our laws inhibit the importation of slaves 
under the penalty of death and the pirate's fate, a mere 
bubble, a device of trade, amounting to prohibition from 
abroad, to mcrease the value of a trade of the same des9rip- 
tion at home ? Has the slave trade of Africa been banished 
under a scale of ascending penalties, terminating in a pirate's 
death, barely to introduce a slave trade into America, the 
victims of which, in part, are the sons and daughters of white 
men, and thus make white blood and black blood share the 
terrors of the American domestic slave trade, vastly exceed- 
ing in point of numbers, annually, those imported from 
Africa, in any one year, from 1*789 to 1808 ? And inasmuch 
as the slaves of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
and the mountain parts of the two Carolinas, are better 



ADDEESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 101 

informed and cultivated in their knowled2:e of rierht and 
wrong, tlian the nations of Africa, by so much the more are 
their suflerings increased, in being torn from their natal soil 
and the relatives they have, than the less informed children 

of Africa. 

IIOEROKS OF THIS TEAFFIC. 

The slave has no interest in property or things, or in the 
soil. His whole earthly interest is in the love and s}Tnpathy 
of his relations, and in the beings for whom he has formed 
strong attachments in his youthful days. Therefore he is by 
a removal from those places where he was raised, and in 
severing all the bonds that make life supportable, doubly 
robbed — always of himself, and lastly of his friends and rela- 
tions. The only objects that rendered him able to bear the 
burden of life, are taken from him by this awful traffic. Hun- 
dreds commit suicide every year, and rush into the next 
world, being stripped of everything in this by which life 
might be sustained. The slave has nothing but what exists 
in the social affections ; strip him of those objects, and his 
misery must be perfect — his agony helpless. Ko man can 
tell the story of such bereavement, who has not been torn as 
a slave from the soil where he was born, to bid an eternal 
farewell to all his friends and relations — the only property or 
interest he possesses (if so it may be called) on this earth. He 
is never permitted to revisit those friends to whom he can 
never Avrite. An impassable gulf separates them ! No. He 
parts with all he loves at once, forever, never to be renewed 
on the shores of time ; not for his own interest, not for a 
noble act of benevolence. No. He goes to wear out his 
life for another, as a slave under the whip, for that man who 
never thanks him for his labor, but rewards hftn with hunger, 
nakedness, stripes, sorrow and contempt, till the grave, pity- 
ing him, takes and forever shelters in its bosom the son of 



102 ALVAN STEWART. 

toil, misery, insult and pain. It is said, not less than 
120,000 are taken annually from the northern slave States to 
the far South. 

EFFECTS OF COLO^sIZING. 

Every attempt by the South to aid the Colonization So- 
ciety, to send free colored people to Africa, enhances the value 
of the slave left on the soil. By sending oil* free colored 
people to Africa, there is no competition with the slave on the 
soil, for the purpose of labor. The slaveholder controls the 
entire sinews of labor by his own will, and can fix his own 
price. If there were free colored persons to hire themselves 
out on the plantations of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and 
Arkansas, the slaveholders of Virgmia, and the other slave- 
growers, would find a competitor in those sugar and cotton 
States, in the free laborer, whom the slaveholders are desirous 
of removing, that they may sell their slaves. 

IMPOKTAXCE OF ABOLISUING THIS TRAFFIC. 

But let the internal slave trade be abohshed, and slavery 
would come to an end by its own weight, in Virginia, Mary- 
land, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the western parts of North 
and South Carolina. These countries, in which Americans 
are grown for the internal slave trade (shameless trade!), 
if these slave-growers could not send their surplus Americans 
abroad, and sell them at great prices, would sink under the 
weight of a population whom their old exhausted slave soil 
could never support. And they would be compelled to 
manumit their colored people from necessity, if they were 
forbidden under penalties, such as are inflicted on those in 
the slave trade with Africa, from sending them out of the 
State, or Territory, or district Avhere the slaves happened to 
be. The far South would be compelled to abandon slave 
labor and employ free colored people, in a great degree, if 



ADDRESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 103 

they could no longer import slaves from abroad to supply the 
havoc created by overworking, underfeeding, and an un- 
healthy chmate. 

Again, slavery never can be abolished in the District of 
Columbia or the Territories, with any expectation of advan- 
tage, until the internal slave trade is abolished between the 
States. Eor the moment the slaveholder in the District of 
Columbia, or in the Territories, perceived that a law was 
about to be passed for the abolition of slavery in the District 
or Territories, before such a law could be passed, the District 
of Columbia or the Territories would be stripped of their 
slaves, who would be sent off in coffles and sold at auction in 
some of the slave States. Thus it becomes every way impor- 
tant that Congress should exercise its unquestionable consti- 
tutional power, and restrain the " migration " of slaves from 
one State, one district, or one Territory, to another, under 
the heaviest penalties, such as would be obeyed. 

THE CONSTITUTION. 

The fourth clause of the eighth section of the first article 
of the Constitution of the United States says, that Congress 
shall have power *' to regulate commerce with foreign nations, 
and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." 

The first clause of the ninth section of the first article of 
the Constitution says that " the migration or importation of 
such persons as any of the States now existing shall think 
proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress 
prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on 
such importation, not exceeding |10 for each person." 

The authority to abolish the domestic slave trade between 
the States, is derived from the fourth clause of the eighth 
section above cited ; and the prohibition of the exercise of 
the power of Congress, by the Constitution, until 1 808, by the 
ninth section of the same article (which alludes to the question 



104: ALVAN STEWART. 

of slavery alone), is conclusive evidence that the framers of 
the Constitution itself, understood the power to be conferred 
by the fourth clause of the eighth section, or else the prohi- 
bition of the exercise of this power, in the ninth section, until 
1808, would have been useless. For it is a principle of con- 
struction admitted, that a power to do an act cannot be 
raised by implication, from any clause of the Constitution, 
unless it become necessary to exert that power by legislation 
to carry into effect some acknowledged power of the Consti- 
tution. Therefore, the Constitution construes the eighth 
section " to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and 
among the several States," as being a source of authority by 
which Congress might abolish the foreign slave trade, and 
also the internal slave trade amongst the States. But it may 
be urged that a power to regulate commerce, does not carry 
with it a power to destroy it. This objection has often been 
raised, but always overruled by the decision, that a power to 
regulate commerce is the same as a power to create and 
destroy, to make or unmake, and therefore Congress, under 
the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations or 
among the States, has power to abolish any particular traffic 
or commerce, which Congress believes to be unprofitable to 
the nation, or disgraceful to its humanity. Congress, in six 
distinct acts, from 1808 to 1824, passed for the abolition and 
utter extinction of the African slave trade, has acknowledged 
the construction now contended for, that a power to regulate 
is a power to alter, change, modify, abolish or annihilate. 
Unless this proposition be true, these acts abolishing the 
African slave trade would be unconstitutional and void, as 
well as a host of other statutes deriving their power from the 
same source. Congress has poAver, under the word " regu- 
late," utterly to annihilate commerce with a particular nation, 
by embargoes, acts of perpetual non-intercourse, and, finally, 
by open war, which is the end of all commercial relations. 



ADDRESS TO TIIP: ABOLITIONISTS. 105 

It may be inquired, how can the traffic, or commerce 
amongst the States, or between one State and another in rela- 
tion to slaves, be regulated ? In the first place, the States as 
between two or more of them have no power by treaty or 
legislation, to regulate this matter, as long as slavery is per- 
mitted in those States ; for Virginia cannot pass a law that 
a man from Maryland importing a slave from Maryland, shall 
be subject to a penalty of $500, or three years imprisonment, 
or that the slave ipso facto, by having been brought from 
Maryland to Virginia should be free. Because the citizens 
of Maryland might cite the 2d section of the 4th article of 
the Constitution of the United States, in wdiich it is declared 
" that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," 
^vhich the State of Virginia cannot overthrow. 

In subjecting a Marylander to forfeiture, loss of liberty, or 
any other penalty in Virginia, for importing his slaves with 
himself, Avould be a course of treatment shown to the Mary- 
lander, not recognized by Virginia toward her own citizens, 
for ha\dng slaves in their joossession ; the law would be uncon- 
stitutional and void, as the law of a State. If the individual 
States have not power to prevent the slave's migrating by 
command of the master from one State to another, it would 
follow, unless Congress has jurisdiction of the subject matter, 
that the internal slave trade among the States must be beyond 
the reach of the individual States or the power of Congress. 
This is an absurdity, which we are not prepared to beheve or 
adopt, that a subject so fraught with abuses, at the horrors of 
which the civilized world might grow pale — should have placed 
itself beyond federal or State legislation. The motives which 
appeared to influence the passage of the six difierent laAvs to 
abolish the African slave trade, w^ere the irrepressible gushings 
of our common humanity in favor of the suffering slave, torn 
from his native land and sold into hopeless captivity. No 

5* 



106 ALVA2T STEWART. 

interest but general humanity, prompted the legislation which 
forever shut down the hatchway on that bloody trade. Hu- 
manity now cries aloud — she goes in our streets — she weeps 
and howls on our highways — she knocks at the door of public 
feeling till her locks are wet with the cold dews of night — she 
goes across the ocean — she pleads not in vain for friends to fly 
to the rescue — she, through England, has sent back her indig- 
nant voice like the sound of many waters, to fall on the guilty 
slaveholder's ear in America. 

Motives and reasons for abolishmg the slave trade 
between the States are greater, as far as the question of 
humanity is concerned, than in the old slave trade. No 
doubt there are twice as many groans, sighs and agonies felt, 
suffered and endured from the American slave trade among 
the States, as were felt by the slaves brought from Africa to 
the United States in any one year, between 1*789 and 1808. 

Yes, two persons, at least, suffer the horrors of migra- 
tion from one State to another, where one suffered by impor- 
tation, from the coasts of Africa to the United States. The 
w^ord " migration " employed in the first clause of the ninth 
section of the first article, is significant indeed, and means 
nothing more nor less than going from one State to another, 
not from one part of a State to another ; not coming from a 
foreign country beyond sea, that would be met by the other 
word " importation " which the aboHtion of the African 
slave trade undertook to prevent, in the six statutes passed 
for its abohtion. 

CONCLUSION. 

It is firmly believed, that, were a rigorous law passed 
by Congress, forbidding the internal slave trade between the 
States, it would be equivalent to the manumission on the soil 
of two-thirds of the slaves in the United States in less than 
ten years. 



ADDKESS TO THE ABOLITIONISTS. 107 

It is therefore earnestly desired, that every anti-slavery 
society, or individual who may petition Congress on the 
subject, may make the annihilation of the domestic, or inter- 
nal slave trade between the States, a point of the most promi- 
nent importance, and pray for its entire abolition. 



EXTRACTS. 

SLAVERY ARRAIGNED. 

The slave still groans, humanity weeps, the helpless yet 
implore. "We are in the midst of the greatest moral battle 
ever fought by Mercy, pleading against intelligent and 
vigilant villainy. The Abolitionists are the organ of national 
compassion, and are making up the dreadful issue between 
criminality enthroned upon laws, and justice beleagured by 
the myrmidons of robbery. We have arraigned the greatest 
criminal ever summoned to the bar of Divine and human 
reason, the triors of whom are the good and the just of this 
and all ages, and the verdict is written and pronounced by 
the Saviour of the world, who is the Foreman of this grand 
inquest, and brings in the verdict of guilty^ while the Uni- 
verse cries, " Amen." It has been the undertaking of Anti- 
Slavery men, for many years past, to make the men of this 
generation imderstand and believe tliat such is the rendered 
verdict of Divine asAvell as human wisdom. One half of this 
besotted nation denied the existence of such a verdict, while 
a vast portion of the other half folded their arms, and said, 
" If there was such a verdict, the criminal had the power to 
nullify it; and if the criminal saw fit to call the verdict of 
' guilty' an acquital, by a Imo of his own, ichi/ that made it 
so ."' 

REFORMERS MALIGNED. 

We, perhaps, have encountered more obstacles than have 
often been presented to a band of Reformers. The politi- 
cal power of the country having been claimed and wielded 
by two great parties, nearly balanced, we might have 

108 



EXTRACTS. 109 

reasoned, in ordinary cases, that if one party persecuted us, 
the other would have jDrotected us ; but, no, the party to 
which we might flee, felt that it had more to lose, in the 
estimation of slaveholders, than they could gain by our votes, 
and each party run a race, to the top of their speed, against 
us, and the one which could shout our condemnation the 
loudest was supposed to be nearest the goal of its ambition. 
In fact, the weight of our vote was nothing, as compared 
with the disgrace of our alliance. Both parties scouted us ; 
the mobs howled around our conventions, and pursued us to 
our homes ; the churches, in their aggregate caj)acity, refused 
to acknowledge that we had found truth ; but all parties, 
religious or political, in power or out, the women-whippers, 
the man ovmers^ and their apologists^ the mobs, the Pharisee 
and Saducee, the sinner and publican, the drunkard and 
debauchee, formed one grand line, standing shoulder to 
shoulder, deriding our arguments, jeering at our philan- 
thropy, traducing the slave, mocking his sorrow, defaming 
truth and libelling Omnipotence, until the civilized world was 
shocked by the impurity of our sentiments, and the violence 
of our actions. 

liberty's imperial guard. 
Good men will be willing to spend and be spent, and 
work in our conventions, prepare resolutions, advocate them, 
write tracts and scatter them, notify meetings and attend 
them, print votes and distribute them, give money and time, 
and stand up for the slave on the bridge or in the boat, hi 
the car or the stage, in the pulpit or the press, at the fire- 
side or the ballot box. These men will carry your reforma- 
tion through ; they will not lead you in sight of the promised 
land, and at last advise you that the Constitution is in the 
way, and that you had better go back into Egypt and 
acknowledge Pharaoh's jurisdiction, and go to making 



110 ALVAN STEWART. 

bricks, raising onions, and weeding garlics ; nor would they 
advise you to die in the wilderness for fear of those huge 
Anakims^ and for the sake of saving the expense of a grave- 
yard. 

DOUGII-FACES. 

We shall conquer ; we shall perform the mighty Avork. 
The world is coming to our side. Let those who are dis- 
couraged be sent home on an everlasting furlough to the 
Whigs and Democrats, and there let them live and die^ con- 
templating the beautiful mysteries of cowardice^ and the 
essential attributes of the meanest 2^ositio7i ever occupied by 
man. 

SYCOrHANCY IXVADES THE COLLEGE. 

The i^rofessor in our northern college respectfully ap- 
proaches the young heir of a hundred negroes, and with his 
hat under his arm, and humble genuflections, timidly inquires, 
lohen it will be convenient for him to receive an idea f 

THE GKEEN MOUNTAIN STATE. 

We slept at Manchester, and passed over the Green 
Mountains near this place, through one of those notches the 
Great Creator left for a passage of his creatures from one 
side to the other. It would be strange if Vermont, the rocks 
of whose eternal mountains are yet red with the blood of the 
war of independence, the war for human rights^ should 
have been found throwing her weight into the slaveholders' 
scale, from expediency, fear of new measures, ultraism, or any 
other ghost, kept in the pay of the devil, to scare men out of 
their duty. But it is not so. Vermont will do her duty in 
the great struggle between slavery and liberty. 

DESERTION FROM THE RANKS. 

I will not accuse Mr. J of having deserted the glorious 



EXTRACTS. Ill 

cause of human rights for the sake of the distinguished office 
of a justice of the jyeace. I wish merely to say, that his 
election as justice by the Democrats, and his desertion from 
the friends of liberty, were contemporaneous events in that 
gentleman's history. 

A PERVERTED EDUCATION. 

If you begin early enough, you may teach a boy to worship 
a jackass, and every time he neighs and shakes his reverend 
head, the boy wiU take it for a divine communication. 

DUTY TO REFUTE SLANDER. 

I should have thought that Mr. w^ould have hired a 

sick horse, or come on foot, or on crutches, from the Lower 
Saginaw to Pontiac, or Flint River, or any other spot on this 
terraqueous globe, to have made his honor shine through the 
interstices of the ribs of those gibbeted villains. 

NEGLECTING THE TRUE ISSUE. 

Our party committed a great mistake in Michigan, in 
turning their attention temporarily from the great question 
on which our organization was founded, to the consideration 
of a " local and minor point." It was as if, on coming to 
see John Rogers suffer, at Smithfield's burning stake, your 
attention was to be entirely consumed during the martyrdom, 
in beholding a dog fight! 

JOHN BO WD OWN. 

" I vote," says one, " for the Bold John Faithful !" On 
his ballot is virtually inscribed his sentiments, his legislation 
in the grand committee of the whole. The other casts his 
pro-slavery vote, saying, " I go for John Boicdown to the 
South !'-> 

A BANDED POWER. 

The town power is the power of poicers. Let a dozen men 



112 ALYAN STEWART. 

say, in December, " We will elect our ticket next town-meet- 
ing," the very fact that they have a given object before them 
will three-fold every man's exertion, and lend him new power, 
feeling and energy. But if a man works without a stint be- 
fore him, he says, " I cannot see the length and breadth of 
the undertaking," and he will work as solemn and as stupid 
as the man who attempts to empty the mill-pond with his 
quart cup. 

ECCLESIASTICAL EECREANCY. 

The Church has been standing on the north side of the 
Hill of Expediency, slipping down its cold and icy surface, 
from height to depth, until her vernacular tongue, her 
shibboleth, became that of the mixed multitude in the vale 
below, whose idiom and pronunciation were taught in that 
classic man-chattel school. 

MAHOMET'S COFFIN. 

This year will settle the minds of the slaveholders and their 
apologists, and those timid neutrals who are existing at the 
centre of gramty^ and are as likely to go one way as another ; 
or, from an equality of attraction, to be held half way between 
a well-balanced douht and a thriving conjecture^ until they 
putrify for want of motion, and pass down to coming times 
as the victims of position. 

DUTY TO VOTE. 

When a man is summoned, as a sj^irit, from the unknown 
and indefinable surrounding eternity, lie comes to take 
possession of a body which, at twenty-one years of age, is a 
sovereign, a law-maker in the land, and his Creator com- 
mands him to exercise his power for the benefit of his race, 
to remember those in bonds as bound with them, to love his 
neighbor as himself, and to do the greatest good to the 
greatest number. When he votes, he legislates through his 



EXTKACTS. 113 

agents and representatives ; for, as a nation, wc are always in 
a committee of the Whole. 

FEEESOIL. 

I am rejoiced to see how good a freesoil man you have 
become. I rejoice at the movement, and if I had health, I 
would roar like a lion in the wilderness, from Montauk to 
Chatauque, publishing free speech, free men and free soil. 
Yes, I would make a furrow^ in the Free Soil so deep and so 
wdde, that slavery would never dare look into it. 

MODE OF LABOK. 

We must not keep hanging round our favorite deer-licks^ 
but scatter abroad, and carry our principles to the farmer at 
the plough, and to the mechanic in his shop, and the laborer 
at his toil, wherever he may be found. The time is gone by for 
us to sustain troops of paid lecturers, and now every man of 
us must be a lecturer, not heralded by a flourish of trumpets, 
but sustained and urged on by the sweet consciousness that 
he is doing his duty and pleasing his God. 

GAGGERS. 

Look at the three worthy gaggers — ^Pinckney, Patton and 
Atherton — a triumvirate of poor creatures, whose names Avill 
pollute every page of history, where their ineffaceable actions 
shall be recorded. 

NAT TURNER. 

In the Nat Turner insurrection, was the excitement con- 
fined to the three or four counties where the rising took 
place ? No, by no means. The whole South was converted 
into a guard-house ? Every master slept on his pistols, while 
the nightly patrols w^ent up and down in every direction. 
An individual of the humblest station had struck a spark 



114: ALVAN STEWAKT. 

which well-nigh ignited the whole mass of volcanic material 
on which the South reposes. 

ULTIMATE SUCCESS. 

Do not be disheartened. Everything wears a new and 
glorious aspect. The matter is absolutely settled, that we 
must abohsh slavery ; and as sure as the sun rises, we shall, 
in a few years, ride over slavery at full gallop, unless she 
picks herself up and gets out of the way of Liberty's 
cavalry. 

THE ANTI-SLAVERY WAR-STEED. 

Our anti-slavery horse is a httle restive, and will carry no 
other load in the first instance, except emancipation of every 
slave in the land. He will kick up and throw off the load, if 
you put on him a Presbyterian pack, or a Methodist bag, or 
a Quaker blanket, or a Democratic sack of queer matters, or 
a Whig harness ; and he will even bite if you attempt to put 
a bridle of non-resistant bits in his mouth ; he will not wear 
an abstract martingale. If you mean to have him thrive, 
feed him largely on hallot-hox oats. He desires no manger 
but the ballot-box. As long as we fed him on the best oats 
Ave could get of either of the great parties, or those miser- 
able wild ones called infinite scatteration oats, he throve like a 
certain steed fed on Connecticut long oats — to wit, whip- 
lashes — and under these scant feedings, in connection with 
his non-resistant provender, the poor fellow grew poor and 
mangy, until you could count his ribs as easy as you could 
the hoops of a flour-barrel. But since we have fed him on 
concentrated hallot-hox oats^ he has shed his old coat, begins 
to lift his head and tail, and runs round the field, and even 
siiorts with exultation at his new and delightful sensations, 
and the fine prospect ahead. 



EXTRACTS. 115 



THKIFT PALSIED BY SLAVERY. 

Slavery has been one of the main causes of the deranged 
condition of our currency. History and philosophy teach 
that every system of unpaid, coerced labor, is intrinsically 
unprofitable and ruinous. When the city of Kew York 
struck her balance-sheet after the crash of 1837, she found the 
South her debtor in more than $75,000,000— little of which 
is yet discharged. Slavery has leeched the industrious North. 
The truthful philosophy of the nine digits teaches, that we 
can never regulate the currency, while the great Disturber 
has his hands on the monetary heart-strings of the country. 

DO THE SLAVES DESIKE LIBEllTY ? 

In Georgia, said Mr. S., about three years ago, there lived 
a man, black but noble, a giant in strength, and in form an 
Apollo Belvidere, about thirty-five years of age, a slave, with 
a wife and four children also slaves. The love of hberty 
burned irrepressibly in his bosom, and he determined to 
escape, and free his wife and children at all hazards. He had 
heard of Canada, as a place where the laws made every man 
free, and protected him in his freedom. But of its situation 
or the road thither, or the geography of the intermediate 
country, he knew nothing. A Quaker who resided near him, 
being privy to his design, resolved to aid him in its accom- 
plishment ; and accordingly carried the slave and his family 
fifty miles in a wagon by night. In the daytime they lay 
concealed in the woods, and on the second night the same 
man carried them fifty miles further. At the end of the 
second night, he told the black man that he could do no more 
for him, having already endangered both his life and property. 
He told the slave that he must not travel on the highway, 
nor attempt to cross a ferry, but, taking him by the hand, he 
committed him to God and the north star. This star he was 



116 ALTAN STEWART. 

to take as his guide, and it would lead liini at length to the 
land of British freedom. The poor slave bade adieu to his 
benefactor, and after skulking in the day and travelling by 
night, he at length came to an unexpected obstacle. It was 
a broad river (the Savannah), of whose existence he had not 
the least knowledge. But as nothing remained but to cross 
it, he tied his two young children on his back, and between 
swimming where it was deep, and wading where it was shal- 
low, his two elder sons swimming by his side, he at length 
made out to reach the opposite bank; then returning, he 
brought over his wife in the same manner. In this way he 
passed undiscovered through the States of South and North 
Carolina and Virginia, crossed Pennsylvania without even 
knowing that it was the land of Quakers ; and finally, after six 
weeks of toil and hardship, he reached Buftalo. Here he placed 
his wife and children in the custody of a tribe of Indians in the 
neighborhood, for the poor man will always be the poor man's 
friend, and the oppressed will stand by the oppressed. The 
man proceeded to town, and as he was passing through the 
streets, he attracted the notice of a colored barber, also a 
man of great bodily power. The barber stepped up to him, 
and put his hand on his shoulder and said, " I know you are 
a runaway slave ; but never fear, I am your friend." The 
man confessed he was from Georgia, when the barber said, 
" Your master inquired about you to-day, in my shop, but do 
not fear, I have a friend who keeps a livery stable, and Avill 
give us a carriage as soon as night comes, to carry your 
family beyond the reach of a master." 

As the ferry boat does not run across the Kiagara in the 
night, by day-break they were at the ferry house, and rallied 
the ferryman to carry them to the Canada shore. They 
hastened to the boat, and just as they were to be let go, the 
master was seen, on his foaming horse, with i:)istol in hand, 
calling out to the ferryman to stop and set those people 



EXTRACTS. 117 

ashore, or he would blow his brains out. The stout barber, 
quick as thought said to the ferryman, " If you don't put off 
this instant, I'll be the death of you." The ferryman thus 
threatened on both sides, Hfted up his hands and cried, " The 
Lord have mercy on me ! It seems I am to be killed any 
how ; but if I do die, I will die doing right," and cut the 

EOPE. 

The powerful current of the Niagara swept the boat rapid- 
ly into deep water, beyond the reach of tyranny. The work- 
men at work on the steamboat Henry Clay, near by, almost 
involuntarily gave three cheers for liberty. As the boat dart- 
ed into the deep and rapid stream, the people on the Canada 
side, who had seen the occurrence, cheered her course, and 
in a few moments the broad current was passed, and the man 
with his wife and children, were all safe on British soil, 
protected by British laws ! ! 



SPEECH DELIVERED AT PENNSYLVANIA HALL, 

PHILADELPHIA, MAY 15th, 1838, 
OX A RESOLUTIOX RELATIVE TO THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 

The House of Representatives of the Congress of the 
United States, a body created by the breath of the nostrils 
of the freemen of this nation, has, by a palpable violation of 
the Constitution, denied the right of petition ; and if there is 
merit in having been the first body of men clothed with high 
legislative power, who in this world have exercised it by 
refusing to hear the petitions of their constituents, then the 
House of Representatives stands alone in its glory, pre- 
eminent, without rival — treading a path which Egyptian 
Pharaoh, and Russian Nicholas, and the turbaned Sultan, 
have never ventured upon. What was the prayer of these 
denied petitioners ? They asked the abolition of slavery — 
American, Republican slavery ! 

" Hear, O Heavens ! and be astonished, O Earth !" — the 
representative of yesterday denies the right of his constituent 
of to-day, to ask him to give liberty to the bondman ; denies 
the constituent the right of having his petition so much as 
read in the presence of their high mightinesses ! The future 
historian of this land, when truth shall have triumphed over 
delusion, when the sober dictates of humanity shall have 
conquered the dark spirit of slaveholding fanaticism, Tvhen 
quadrennial President-making shall not be a draft on the 
heart's blood of our expiring liberties — astonishment shall 
make him drop his pen to weep over the degeneracy of his 
boasting ancestors, till the love of his country's fame shall 
make him doubt these dreadful scenes in the narrative of the 

118 



SPEECH ON TIIE EIGHT OF PETITION. 119 

20tli and 21st of December, 1837. He will visit the city 
bearing the name honored by the father of his country, and 
turning over volume after volume of ancient Congressional 
records, shall sigh in the search of the liberty-murdering 
Congress of December, 1837 ; till at last he finds on that ill- 
fated 2 1st of December, 183 7, that Mr.Patton of Virginia asked 
the i^revious question to be put for the adoption of a resolu- 
tion, by which " all petitions on the subject of slavery to that 
House should lie upon its table unready unprinted^ unreferred^ 
undebated^ and unconsidered p'' and that it passed, one hun- 
dred and twenty for, and seventy-four against it. " Ah !" 
says the future Tacitus of this land, as he muses over these 
dark and man-dishonoring pages — " What is here ? The 
' previous question ' — the tyrant's gag ! — the petitions on 
slavery ' unready unprinted^ unreferred^ iindehated and iin- 
C07isidered.^ Oh ! what a rent hath slavery made in the 
Constitution's robe !" 

DECEMBER 21 ST, 1837. 

On the shortest day of the year — of least hght — of most 
darkness — the deed has been done by slaveholders and their 
wretched apologists. Oh, the 21st of December, 1837 ! why 
must that day rob my country of its glory, its good name, 
and steep it in infamy? Let the 21st of December, 1837, 
perish from my country's calendar. Let that day be dark- 
ness forever after. "Let not God regard it from above, 
neither let the hght shine upon it. Let darkness and the 
shadow of death stain it ; let a cloud dwell upon it ; let the 
blackness of the day terrify it ; let it not be joined unto the 
days of the year ; let it not come into the number of the 
months. Let the night be solitary, and no joyful voice come 
therein. Let them curse it, that curse the day, who are 
ready to raise up their mourning. Let the stars of the twi- 



120 A-LVAN STEWART. 

light thereof be dark. Let it look for light, but have none ; 
neither let it see the dawning of the day." 

BURIED ARCHIVES. 

But as he turns with mournful steps from this painful soli- 
loquy, he goes to a room thirty by twenty, and twelve feet 
high, and beholds the mighty mausoleum of the embalmed 
remains of the Great Unread, the Great Unprinted, the Great 
Unreferred, the Great Unconsidered — the dead corpse of a 
nation's right of petition, laid out in solemn state in the wing 
of the Capitol ! There is a library of two miUions of authors 
on one subject— the imread library of a nation's humanity ! 
Behold the manuscripts, three times the number of the Alex- 
andrian library. There lies the collected majesty of entombed 
Philanthropy. Yes, to this pile of recorded glory, those who 
wish, in coming generations, to rank high for the nobility of 
their descent, will send the faithful examiner to see if their 
ancestor did not sign these unread petitions to Congress, on 
their father's or mother's, or grandfather's or grandmother's, 
or great grandfather's or great grandmother's side. And if 
they did, the man who searches for ancestral merit by which 
to raise his own, will beheve it a happy day for him, when he 
shall find the name of the progenitors of his race written on 
these imread and unprinted petitions to Congress, for the 
abolition of slavery, in the 34th, 35th, 36th, 37th and 38th 
years of the nineteenth century. 

RIGHT OF PETITION. 

The right of petition is as old as human want. It is the 
language of the child to the parent. His every want, his 
every necessity, appeals to the parent by way of petition. 
His every gratified desire is but the fruit of some granted 
petition. The pupil in the school, the scholar in the imiver- 
sity, comes to his superior every day with petitions. Tlie 



SPEECH ON THE EIGHT OF TETITION. 121 

schoolmaster, the trustees of a school, or the mspectors of 
schools, or the commissioners of schools — the commissioners 
of highways, and the path-master have their petitioners. 
The overseers of the poor, the keepers of the county poor- 
house, have their petitioners. The commissioners of excise, 
who grant rum-diplomas — the supervisor, tOAvn-clerk, and 
justices are petitioned. Town meetings are petitioned. 
The board of suj^ervisors sit Aveeks in their counties 
listening to and deciding petitions. The justice courts, 
the common pleas, the supreme courts, and chancery are 
thronged Avith petitioners. The governors of States, and 
the President of the United States, overwhelmed as they 
are with petitions, have they ever dared, or the subor- 
dinate bodies referred to, to lay petitions presented to them 
on their tables, unread and unconsidered? No. Legisla- 
tures in twenty-six States, sitting, on an average, three 
months in the year, or about one-fourth of the time — the 
immediate representatives of the people*— sit for the express 
purpose of deciding upon the petitions presented to them by 
the j^eople. Who ever heard of a legislature in one of those 
States, except New York, in 1837, ever refusing to read, 
print, or consider the petitions of the people ? 

Congress sits to hear the various petitions of this nation, 
except those affecting human liberty, more than one-third of 
the year. The whole form of our government, family, school, 
town, county. State, nation — whether in the legislative, judi- 
cial, or executive, at every step and angle of proceeding in 
human affairs, whether in Church or State, whether in pros- 
perity or adversity, sickness or health, moves forward on the 
Avheels of petitions. Petitioning or requesting, whether 
written or verbal, is one side of affairs, while the other is to 
consider and weigh the application on its merits, and grant 
or refuse the petition asked. 

No, the whole system of Divinity, the worship of God, 





122 ALYAN STEWAKT. 

whether it be that of the Mohammedan or the Jew — Protestant 
or Cathohc — whether it be idolatrous or spiritual, in what- 
ever form rehgion has been shadowed forth to this world, 
its votaries hold communion with the Unseen Power, by 
petition. Man as man, the erring, the weak, the naked and 
trembling mortal of a day, goes to the Being who is infinitely 
his superior, by prayer and petition. 

The Almighty's ear is not dull of hearmg our petitions and 
complaints. Petition is the everlasting language in all 
countries and all climes, in all ages and conditions, of the 
subordinate, asking assistance from man, or deliverance from 
God. This is inseparable from the condition of man, man 
free, or man a slave. 

What subject so proper, whether presented in person or by 
another, as a petition to deliver the slave ii'om his cruel 
bondage, his pain, his stripes, his insults — to repeal laws 
taking away all his rights ; to jietition that a man may have 
his wife, a woman her husband, and both, their children — and 
that the daughter and son may not be taken from them and 
sent where the parents shall see them no more — that their 
own backs may feel stripes no more — that they may hunger 
no more, thirst no more, be insulted no more, kept ignorant 
no more, chained no more, and unpaid for labor no more. 

The beings, of all others, requiring the intervention of su- 
preme legislative power in their behalf, are the poor slaves, 
already bereaved of every political right in this world. 
Shocking to relate, these same audacious men, Avho have 
stolen the slave from Africa, by tempting the kidnapper, 
with their money, to go and catch him, or have held the 
slave as though the slave was under special obligation to the 
master, that he even permits and allows him to breathe and 
swallow God's fresh air, and look upon the same sun without 
striking him dead, and that he ought to be dehghted to have 
an opportunity to serve a man, naked or in rags, who will 



SPEECH ON THE EIGHT OF TETITTON. 123 

sufier him to hoe cotton from daylight in his cotton liekl till 
dark, and have a peck of corn a week, or four cents per day 
to bny food — ah ! yes, these southern slaveholding members 
of Congress deny the right of petition in behalf of these most 
forlorn beings, who are made wretched by being made the 
victims of pilfering, by having their masters meanly rob them, 
and steal from them, and whip them, to get more out of 
them, and then say to them, "We have abused you so badly 
that we shall not allow you to state your wrongs to the 
world or to Cong^ress, as we do not intend our meanness 
shall be known." 

slaveholders' shame. 
The truth may as well be known to the world first as last. 
The reason why the slaveholders rose up in the face of day 
and went out of the Hall of Representatives of this nation on 
the 20th December last, and concocted their successful 
scheme, which was put in execution the next day, to " lay all 
petitions on the subject of slavery, unread, unprinted, unre- 
ferred, unconsidered and undebated o;i the table," was from 
shame and conscious guilt, not having courage to face their 
deeds of cruelty, darkness, shame, crime, stealmg, robbery, 
debauchery, and meanness, when held up to the glare of the 
world ! They withered in advance, before the coming storm. 
" Ah !" say they, " are we, the sons of chivalry, to be called 
thieves and sons of thieves — we, who are members of Con- 
gress, hving in pomp on the unpaid labor of the helpless — 
are we to be called devourers of widows' houses, yea, of the 
widows themselves and their children ? Shall it bs told that 
we made the poor child motherless and fatherless, by selling,- 
for money, the father from the children one year to a distant 
part of the country, never to return, the next year that toe 
have sold the mother ichose sable breasts were the fountains 
of our infantile subsistence — the next year that we have 



124 ALT AN STEWART. 

whipiDed and sold our own childre^i, and, uninstructed, made 
them bondmen to the number of half a milHon, who have in- 
herited from us, then- white fathers, a bastard reputation, 
and all the wretched sorrows of a slave." Is this a father's 
legacy ? 

Deep, conscious guUt, on the part of the southern masters, 
has made them roar like the ocean's waves, to turn the eyes 
of the world in every direction except toward themselves — 
the ears of mankind to hear everything, except the thrice-told 
tale of slaveholding infamy. Fear, /ear, shame, shame^ yes, 
burning SHAME, laid those resolutions on the table. 

EEPOET ON SLAVERY. 

What ! could the slaveholder bear a reference of the two 
milhons of petitions, to a select committee who felt deeply 
for the slave, with power to send for persons and papers, and 
with leave to said committee to sit in vacation, from the 
coming July till December after, to collect all the materials 
for a report, and draw the death warrant of slavery, as the 
very report itself would be ? 

This nation only requires the report of a select committee 
of seven persons, energetically employed a few months, to 
make out the indictment against slavery, to have a verdict 
of guilty pronounced by an injured and indignant nation. 

What will be in that report ? How will it be made up ? 
What are the materials of such a report, and how are they to 
be obtained ? Let us look at it a little. 

1. This committee should send for all the codes of slave 
laws of the several States, and of the United States. Bring 
' up, now, those statute books of blood and crime, and you 
will find them full of high treason against God and against 
humanity. Laws made by the very men who claim this 
property under those laws. And Avhat do they estabUsh ? 
Why, power, irresponsible power, of man over man. This is 



SPEECH ON THE RIGHT OF PETITION. 125 

the beginniDg and the end — the pervading spirit of the whole 
code, from beginning to end. Name the civil right Avhich 
these laws secure to the slave ! There are none ; there is no 
recognition of a single right m the slave. 

2. ^yhat is the sustenance which these laws claim for the 
black man, as the only legal compensation for a hfe of com- 
pulsory toil? Read the words — " one peck of corn per 
week " — that is, two shiUings a week, or about six mills for 
each meal. Our northern horses — pardon me, I do not in- 
tend to be low ; it touches humanity, and cannot be low ; — I 
was saying our northern horses must have at least twenty- 
five cents jjer day in oats — or fourteen shillings per week. 
The keepmg of one northern horse is equal to that of four- 
teen southern slaves. There is no man in a laborious em- 
ployment here, who does not pay a dollar and a half or two 
dollars a week for his board. Does a northern man eat 
fourteen times as much as one at the South ? No ; but the 
saving is m the quality and cost of the food. Figures Avill 
tell you, that in the article of keeping alone, the master of 
200 slaves will make a saving of $314 a week, barely by the 
deductions from the poor slave's stomach. This, in a year, 
would make the pretty sum of sixteen thousand dollars 
pinched out of these w^retched men! The whole world 
would cry out. But until such an investigation can be made, 
I fear this nation will not believe the fact, although we show 
it in the very statute books of the South. Yery probably 
there are numbers' here to-day, who will set all this down as 
abolition slang, not worthy of behef or regard. But if they 
could see the evidence brought out in a Congressional report, 
the whole nation would shout in a voice that might almost 
rend the rocks, for the speedy abolition of this detestable 
system. 

3. There is another thmg which we should find in these 
statute books of the Slave States. No black man can, in any 



126 ALYAN STEWAET. 

circumstance, be a witness against a white man. Hang that 
fact up before the nation and the world. Add to it, that by 
the slave code no marriage can be binding between a slave 
and his wife, but may be dissolved at any moment by the 
arbitrary will of the master. Then, again, the parent has no 
authority over the child, to train or govern him according to 
the law of God. Hang that up to view. Go on, now, and 
make a full synopsis of these laws. You will find, however, 
that they have made provisions for hanging the man who 
shall murder a slave. Now, then, let the committee summon 
all the clerks of the counties throughout the slave region, to 
bring their records, and certify whether there has ever been 
a single instance of a master being hanged for the murder of 
a slave. Yet, in North Carolina, not long since, two white 
men were hung for merely coaxing a slave away from his 
master. And, I suppose, a single sheet would contain a list 
of all the cases on record, of punishments inflicted on masters 
for cruelties or injuries inflicted on their slaves. 

4. Next, I would have the committee of Congress call up 
ten experienced planters from each of the slave States, to 
testify what is the political economy of slavery. I would 
require them to state, as honest men, whether the question 
has not been often discussed among them, wdiich is the most 
profitable, to work slaves to death in five years, when cotton 
is fourteen cents per pound, or to work them twenty years, 
with cotton at ten cents. Inquire of them whether one-third 
of the plantation slaves are not let out to tenants, whose only 
interest is to get out of those poor creatures the greatest 
possible amount of labor, wath the least possible expense for 
Gubsistence and comfort. And yet we have men among us, 
who have rolled through the South in the pubUc conveyances, 
and seen the well-fed servants at the hotels, and wdio tell you 
they know all about slavery, for they have been there, and 
the slaves are the happiest class of beings in the world. 



SPEECH ON THE EIGHT OF PETITION. 127 

5. Next, I would send for some men of a class that I believe 
it is Patrick Henry describes, as the fecxdimi of creation, the 
scrapings of hmnanity — the slave drivers, northern men, who 
have sold themselves, body and soul, to carry on this dreadful 
business in the detail. I would interrogate them as to the 
various modes of subduing a refractory spirit, of finding out 
whether a slave is sick or feigns sickness, and all the various 
expedients of cruelty, by which an overseer tries to build up 
the reputation of a great labor-getter. 

6. Let our Congressional committee then send for a hun- 
dred free men from the slave States, wdio have never owned 
a slave themselves, nor their relations, and let them tell what 
they know about the cruelties and the pollutions incident to 
the system of slavery. 

.7. Then I would send for a hundred free colored men, 
w^ho should be allow^ed for the first time, under the security 
of the strong arm of the nation, to testify of their wrongs. 
Let each one tell how often and by what hair-breadth escapes 
he has avoided being kidnapped into slavery. Let him turn 
to that law which allows the magistrate to exile a free 
colored man from his country, on ten days' notice, unheard, 
untried, without cause, without compensation, as passion or 
caprice may dictate, with confiscation of his estate ; and if 
he refuses to go, to be sold as a slave, and his children after 
him forever. 

8. Then I would have them call for a hundred of the ten 
thousand fugitive slaves, that have found a refuge in Canada, 
under the government of a hereditary monarch, from the 
tender mercies of our republican institutions. Let tbem tell 
of hopes crushed and hearts broken, of what they endured in 
slavery, and of the sufferings and anxieties through which 
they have passed while in the pursuit of liberty. 

9. Then I would have brought up before the committee a 
hundred slaves from the cotton-fields and the sugar-houses, 



128 ALVAN STEWART. 

who should give ocular demonstration of what slavery is. I 
would have them freed, and protected by a strong force, and 
they should show their persons abused, their limbs mutilated, 
their brands and gashes, their backs cut from their shoulders 
to the heels with republican stripes. 

When the committee have gathered all the information in 
their power, let it be embodied in a report. It would make 
a volume of a thousand pages. Then send that report 
through the land. Let the mails burst and the stages groan 
with the mighty load, telling the naked truth on this subject, 
in an official and authentic form.; — and I tell you, slavery 
never lifts its abominable head again. All that the nation 
wants is to have a case once made out to their conviction, 
that slavery is ichat Abolitionists charge it t:> be^ and our 
work is done. 

This mountain of iniquity would then stand before every 
honest mind in all its dreadful prominence. The peoj)le, 
horror-struck, would cry out against it. The foundations of 
the great deep of crime, as yet unfathomed, would be broken 
up. As yet who hath believed our report, as Abolitionists ? 
But this would be moral demonstration. It would be taken 
on the oath of the people of the dark and sullen regions of 
slavery. — Yes, with this report, the nation would pronounce 
their everlasting condemnation and overthrow of slavery, and 
all would Free. 



SPEECH ON THE GEEAT ISSUES 
BETWEEN EIGHT AXD WRONG. 

DELIVERED AT PENNSYLVANIA HALL, MAY 16, 1838, 
Before several Thousand People, 

Amen, and amen, have been shouted from the throats of 
the unthinking miUions of this earth, as the mandates of tyr- 
anny were proclaimed, as the edicts of inhumanity were pub- 
Kshed to the world ; while the lamentations of the oppressed 
have ascended night and day, as swift witnesses before 
the living God. These loud outcries of the injured against 
unavenged cruelty, have created epochs in the march of ages. 
At different periods of the world, there have been great 
issues formed between right and wrong, liberty and slavery, 
and on the determination of those issues have depended the 
stability or overthrow of empires, the rising and falUng of 
nations. 

The pages of history, divine or profane, are the recorded 
evidence, arguments, and facts of each generation as they 
have been summoned to share in the creation and decision 
of those issues. When the issue has been correctly framed, 
crime, ashamed of her own frightful jDrogeny, has called in 
falsehood, with her open mouth, to deceive the weak and the 
thoughtless. 

Truth has been insulted and clamored down by the roar of 
numbers, who have interrupted her narrative or insulted her 
for the humility of her dress, or derided her for want of 
those high-born relations which, in the shape of impudence, 

6* 129 



130 ALYAN STEWART. 

interest, superstition, obstinacy, and love of power, have 
confederated to impeach her, by sneering at the simplicity of 
her statements, by undervaluing the force of her arguments, 
while they have sung praises to the highest notes of False- 
hood, sworn its deformity was beauty, and the harsh grind- 
ings in the prison-house of its oppression were the sympho- 
nies of sympathizing humanity ; yea, more, they chanted 
praises of honor and glory to its deductions, and sung anthems 
to its sophistries, and cried amen to its conclusions. 

Honest error has often been a powerful antagonist of truth, 
and the only enemy whom truth assailed with compassion, 
and before whom truth had reason to tremble. For when 
sincerity, one of the darling attributes of truth itself, var- 
nishes error, the judges of the issue sometimes mistake the 
armor of Achilles for tlie mighty foi-m which it was made to 
protect. 

What is right or what is wrong ? Where are the bound- 
aries that separate ? 

How far human arranofcments can chanoje the abstract 
wrong into an expedient right, or the abstract right, if 
asserted, into a wrong, are mighty questions, settled in the 
early ages of the world, and thousands of times since ; but 
they now seem to come forward as fresh questions, demand- 
ing a decision with all the eagerness of zeal, with all that gives 
weight to high pretension, and with an impatience that for- 
bids delay, from the magnitude of the interests involved ; so 
that our minds are compelled to become moral scales, to 
re-weigh and re-mark the mighty interests of humanity. 

But these questions have been weighed and considered by 
Him who cannot err, who is the author of right, the enemy 
of wrong. His weights and measures are tlie enduring reve- 
lations of perfect wisdom. The delivered opinions of the 
Eternal came down to this world, while men were contending 
in the forum of philosophical definitions, groping in the 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN KICIIT AND WRONG. 131 

twilight of their understandings, and wasting their lives in 
finding a standard of right in uninstructed conscience. Tho 
pity of Ilini whose home is immensity, who is from everlast- 
ing to everlastmg, who placed the sliining worlds on their 
great pathways, and gave them a momcntmn which flying 
ages do not weaken, who knows each rood and inch between 
all the self-balanced globes as they rush round the skies in 
their untired race of ages — of that God, who permits each 
one to travel its sublime and annual journey around the sun, 
was manifested in giving man a rule of action for time, eter- 
nity, forever, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." The law 
of gravitation of the moral imiverse ! 

Every departure from this eternal landmark of duty, how- 
ever small, has been the parent of crime and human agony. 

first issue, CAIN AND ABEL. 

The first issue ever made between right and wrong, the 
holy liberty of conscience, and the brutal violence of oppres- 
sion, was between the two first of woman born. While the 
younger employed moral weapons to vindicate his sentiments, 
such as prayer and petition, and went to God for strength, 
wisdom, and direction ; the elder used the modern club- 
logic ; he preferred the bludgeon to manly debate ; to silence 
investigation was better than to convince ; to murder his 
opponent was easier than to answer his arguments. Cain 
was the founder of the brute-force system of logic, being the 
only method then^ or ever since known by its admirers, cf 
answering unansioerahle arguments. 

This mode of reasoning, hke the extreme unction for the 
dying man, is not to be resorted to except in the distressing 
emergency of having no other mode by which to protect 
folly from contempt, obstmacy from rebuke, ignorance from 
pity, and crime from punishment. If Cain could have proved 
Abel in an error, then Abel might have died in his bed, at 



132 ALVAN STEWART. 

nine hundred years of age, or more. But because he could 
not, therefore he slew hnn. So we see the first witness called 
to establish truth died a martyr ; and the morning of the 
new world was hung in black by the depravity of man. 

NEXT ISSUE, NOAH AGAINST THE WOKLD. 

The next great issue made up for everlastmg remembrance, 
was between Noah and his fiimily of eight souls, against the 
world — of right against wrong. "What, could eight persons 
be the only ones right, and the whole world wrong beside ? 
It seems so. Truth is not always found keeping company 
with the multitude, leadmg armies, or seeking the shout of 
numbers. 

But the last mountain top of the antediluvian world was 
covered with water, truth then being on board the floating 
ark, in the eight witnesses, on that ocean without shore or 
island. These eight human beings were the connecting links 
between two worlds ; and lest their narrative should be 
denied in the coming profane ages of philosophic skepticism, 
the massive floors on which the ocean rolled, were torn up, 
and piled away on the tops of mighty mountains, in monu- 
mental strata, on whose pages are written the history of a 
drowned world — a record of God's judgment lithographed 
on the primal formations of the enduring rock ! 

EGYPT AGAINST THE HEBREWS. 

But the most subHme and grand issue ever framed between 
guilty man and his Maker, on the trial of which such amazing 
consequences depended, was aviiethee man should be the 
PROPERTY OF MAN OR THE SERVANT OF GOD ? — whether man 
should lose his charter in himself and become incorporated in 
another's self? — whether a man should cease to have use for 
his mmd and his body, so that another might take that mind 
and body and appropriate it to himself, and extinguish all 



THE GKP]AT ISSUES BETWEEN EIGHT AND WRONG. 133 

claim of the individual in and to himself? This could not be 
permitted Avithout denying God's interest and claim in each 
being whom he had created for His own will and pleasure. 
Therefore, as God had made man, he had a right to his own 
workmanship ; and having conferred on man certain high 
powers, hfe, Hberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which hap- 
piness consists in obeying his Creator's laws, this being could 
not abandon or surrender these rights to another human 
being, nor could another human being assume them — rights, 
which in their nature could neither be surrendered by one, or 
assumed by another, because of God's interest in man as his 
Maker. God had a claim on those unsurrenderable and un- 
assumable rights — a mortgage on them which can never be 
extinguished in time or cancelled in eternity. 

Egypt was the theatre of this momentous issue, in the 
event of which every question affecting human liberty was 
involved, considered and determined. Who were the par- 
ties ? Haughty Egypt in the plenitude of her power, with a 
population of twenty milhons, the schoolmaster of the world, 
the granary of mankind, the home of civilization ; whose 
proud cities opened and shut their hundred gates ; whose 
imperishable structures of monumental marble must have 
equalled in expenditure the united energies of the generations 
of the nineteenth century ; whose mountains for miles inward 
were penetrated and excavated with the silent palaces of the 
dead ; whose power brought from the cataracts of the Nile 
to the Delta, the Monolith temple of soUd rock— Egypt, with 
her acre-covering temples— with her artificial lakes, her giant 
sphinxes, her twenty pyramids, those piles of wonder where 
art seems to rival nature in her boldest work. And on the 
other hand, two and a half millions of Hebrew slaves ; a na- 
tion of tasked bondmen, brickmakers imder their task-masters 
and drivers. 

Egypt was the oppressor ; two and a half millions of 



134 ALVAN STJEWART. 

Hebrews were the oppressed slaves, and God the judge, 
avenger and deliverer. Never was there such^ display of 
Almighty power ; never, since the creation of this world, has 
the iVrm of Omnipotence been more signally revealed than in 
this manifestation of His utter abhorrence of slavery, and 
His love of human liberty. He caused the mighty river of 
Egypt to run with blood from its upper cataracts to its seven 
mouths, and as the Mediterranean received the tribute of the 
Nile, it blushed at Pharaoh's insult to Jehovah, in presuming 
to hold man as a slave. The hail and lightning, the ice and 
fire leaped from their chambers in the clouds to the slave- 
insulted soil, to avenge the quarrel of the abused. The 
locusts forsook their sullen solitudes of whirling sands, and in 
dark armies came riding on the winds to consume the pro- 
ducts of the spoiler's fields. The murrain smote the cattle of 
the task-master ; and on that last dreadful night uprose 
the deatli-wail along the reedy margin of the Nile, and from 
the heart of the mighty cities, as the Angel of Death passed 
silently and unseen from house to house and struck down 
two and a half millions of the first-born of Egypt. Pharaoh, 
in the pride of human glory, said to himself, " I will become 
the defender of Egypt's power against these slaves, my brick- 
makers, by whose unpaid labor I have reared those imper- 
ishable structures, which will stand to the last day of time, 
exciting astonishment and commanding admiration from 
generation to generation ; I will not let the people go." 
The Almighty taught him the folly and crime of his presump- 
tion. To doubt the Deity's hatred of slavery, is to deny the 
truth of this astonishing account. It is to deny the Old and 
New Testament. It is to deny our own nature — the unwritten 
law of conscience. It is to deny and despise all the cries and 
pleadings of our humanity. It is to deny our very existence. 
It is to say there is no sin, that one thing is as right as an- 
other, Btealing is as honest as labor lewdness is the same as 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN KIGUT AND WKONG. 135 

modesty, cruelty as kindness, robbery as benevolence, piracy 
as a purchase. To deny the crime of slavery is to say there 
is no right, no wrong, no justice,,no injustice. 

Behold the flying fugitives ! The Red Sea in their front, 
mountains on their right and left, and the uncounted hosts 
of Egypt in their rear. See the poor fugitives and their 
little ones in the pass of the mountains ; overwhelmed with 
terror, they go to the banks of the sea, and it gathers its 
waters in walls — while the triumphant freedmen, with praises 
on their tongues, and in their hearts, turn round to behold 
the Almighty causing the Egyptian wheels to forsake their 
axletrees, and the wall of water to yield and cover up their 
task-masters forever ! 

A late traveller, of the last ten years, sent a pearl-diver 
down to examine the supposed path of the nation of fugitives, 
and discovered pieces of Egyptian armor and implements of 
war, attesting the truth of this highway in the deep, never 
travelled over but once. 

These fugitive slaves had a cloud by day and a pillar of 
fire by night for their outstretched banner. 

" By day along the astonished lands 
The cloudy pillar glided slow, 
By night Arabia's crimson sands 
Beturned the fiery column's glow." 

They were fed with food direct from the Almighty's table for 
forty years in a land of emptiness and want, where the prowling 
hyena and gaunt wolf howled in the bitterness of hunger 
unappeased. The rock opened its flinty mouth, and sent 
its cooling waters after them. The Almighty, in scorn 
of human gi-eatness, and to show himself no respecter 
of persons, made these despised, runaway slaves the 
honored recipients of the Law of Laws — the ten eternal 
orders of God inscribed with His fingers, and delivered to 



136 ALVAN STEWART. 

them, while the rocky heart of Sinai quaked and trembled 
with His thunders, and its summit shone Avith celestial 
brightness as the lightning blazed around its pinnacles, and, 
through the pauses of the storm, the voice of the great trum- 
pet waxed louder and louder ! 

Thus these poor fugitives had the custodial care of the first 
Heaven-lent geograjDhy, which shows the pathway through 
which man must travel, in order to enter on the joys of that 
undiscovered country from which none return. 

To them was intrusted God's revelation, the living fountain 
from whose waters of truth all of the civilized nations of the 
earth have drawn the fundamentals of jurisprudence. Yes, 
these fugitive slaves were God's librarians, and had the holy 
keeping of His laws, which have been the great moral light 
of this world. 

idumea's blight. 

But what was the treatment these oppressed and fleeing 
fugitives met with from the hands of the King of Edom — the 
land of Idumea ? 

Here we have an awful demonstration of God's detestation 
of a nation which could dare attempt to arrest or impede the 
progress of fleeing fugitive slaves, who sought a passage 
through a neutral country to the land of freedom. For that 
crime the malediction of the Most High has brooded over 
the land of Idumea ! 

Oh! what a solemn fulfillment of prophecy! Look at 
Petra, the city of the Rock in the mountains — the wonder- 
ful capital of this Heaven-doomed land — this nest of one of 
the world's great empires, girded about Avith everlasting 
mountain barriers. Behold her theatres, temples, and cata- 
combs, vying with imperial Rome in the days of her Caesars, 
cut from her granite mountains, with rocky roofs one thousand 
feet in thickness culminating above. Behold her mighty 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG. 137 

palaces without mortar, without joints, chiselled out of 
primeval rock — perfect after the long lapse of centuries, as 
w^hen first opened ! 

Yet this ancient abode of polished life, which felt the 
movings of a mighty ambition, has, for twenty centuries, 
been abandoned of God and forsaken of man, only tenanted 
by the obscene bird and loathsome serpent — the sole inmates 
of the palaces of kings and lodgers in the chambers of 
departed greatness. ISTo man abides in this lone land, no 
man says this is my home. A land once red with the blood 
of the grape, and thronged wdth populous life, it has become 
a sterile and majestic solitude — borne down by the withering 
curse of God, for the crime of opposing the escape of the 
fugitive Hebrew slaves from the land of the spoiler. 

There stands, and will stand to the end of time, the witness, , 
telling to each generation of the world, as they flow down the 
long stream of ages, " here was once a crime committed by 
man against man, by a nation of prosperity against a nation 
of fugitive slaves, flying in distress." The punishment was 
inflicted in the zenith of her glory, and she is the only country 
on the globe which has been depopulated from century to 
century, as an enduring testimonial of the Almighty's wrath. 
As the solitary traveller wanders over the ruins of Petra, he 
is alarmed as echo sends back her voice in answer to his foot- 
steps from the lonely temple, the deserted palace, and silent 
catacombs ; astonished, he lifts his eye, surrounded by ever- 
during w alls of rock, and beholds the only living being, an 
eagle, in the regions of the blue sky, revolving in his noontide 
gyrations over the doomed City of the Mountains. 

The flight of the Hebrews from the house of bondage took 
place at a period wdien Egypt was the home of science — the 
Gamaliel at w^hose feet the learned and inquiring of other 
nations sat. She was at the head of the families of the earth, 
and within her borders w^ere locked up those discoveries 



138 ALVAN STEWART. 

which have since astonished mankind. In the contest between 
Israel and Egypt, therefore, it was enlightened strength con- 
tending against ignorant weakness. There was too much 
power to decide the question by reason and argument, on the 
side of the Egyptians, and too much feebleness on the part of 
the Hebrews. But we are somewhat struck at the superior 
refinement of the haughty slaveholders of Egypt, compared 
with those of the United States. 

Pharaoh, as the representative of supreme power, tolerated 
Moses and Aaron with rights denied by an American Con- 
gress and southern slaveholders, to wit, the rights of petition 
and FREE DISCUSSION. For this matter was discussed no less 
than seven or eight times in the palace of Egypt ; and Pharaoh 
never denied the right of petition but once, and that was 
when he told Moses not to come before him again. But that 
was at the time when Moses had ceased to petition, as the 
business was lodged in the hands of the angel of death. 

ADVENT OF THE EEDEEMEK. 

The next great issue was the advent of our Redeemer. 

The issue was between religion and its counterfeits ; be- 
tween religion and liberty on one side, and idolatry and 
slavery on the other. 

The Redeemer, the poorest man m Judea, and yet the very 
God, took -upon himself the form of a servant— the most 
despised form of our common humanity. The Redeemer 
came to lift up large masses of mankind in the shape of the 
poor, the imprisoned, the enslaved, the miserable, the igno- 
rant, and place tliem on the summit level of our common 
hrjnanity, and vindicate their relationship to God. And in 
the course of three centuries after he preached his sermon on 
the Mount, during which time ten generations came and 
crossed the bridge of human hfe, the truths of that sermon 
had grappled with principalities and powers, with prejudice, 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG. 139 

and idolatry, and slavery, which had grown sturdy by their 
hold on mankind for a thousand years, and had jfilled the 
Roman world with chiselled gods of men's device, while the 
unpaid slave groaned from the Apennines to the banks of 
the Euphrates, from the Scamander to the Tweed, from the 
mountains of Mauritania to the dark-rolling Danube. At the 
end of three hundred years from the blessed Saviour's 
humanity, his holy principles had banished idolatry and 
slavery from the wide-spread Roman world, with its one 
hundred and twenty millions of inhabitants. 

But, oh ! how often did the fagot burn — did the martyr's 
blood flow, in defending the liberty of conscience and of per- 
son, before the world assented to these principles ! 

THE EEFOEMATIOX. 

The next great issue to which the mind of Europe was 
summoned was the Reformation of the fourteenth century. 
Slavery and idolatry had come back to this world again. The 
contest again was between truth and falsehood. 

The men of that generation made brick without straw ; 
their substance was eaten out by ecclesiastical imposition ; a 
midnight of despotism brooded over the faculties of the 
moral world. Slaves in a state of serfism or villanage, were 
groaning beneath the military^pomp of the feudal system. 
■- The human mind rose up from the sleep of a thousand 
years, and shook from itself the accumulated errors of ages, 
and broke those bandages in which the independence of the 
mind and body had been swathed. 

From great issues and mighty trials like these, have been 
drawn all the truth, the religion, and liberty which have 
blessed this world. 

But hypocrisy, with ruin and darkness rioting in its heart, 
entered the portals of the church, and put on the cast-off 
livery Avorn by ruined angels, when their guilty ambition 



14:0 ALVAN STEWART. 

expelled them from the realms of light ; and, professing 
veneration for God's eternal witnesses, the Old and New 
Testaments, these impostors have declared, that these wit- 
nesses spake that which they did not — that these witnesses 
declared slavery was an institution of Heaven, sanctioned by 
the God of justice and mercy ! 

These baneful perversions of Divine truth have been 
employed for the most malignant purposes, so that southern 
professors of religion and professed ministers of Christ, j:)re- 
tend to get their authority to rob the slave of himself, his 
mind, his body, his wife and children, from the Bible ! ! 

THE ISSUE OF 1776. 

North America, in her political behavior, is a contradiction 
in terms. Slie was the land of refuge for the oppressed. 
Corrupt Europe, of the seventeenth century, drove from her 
bosom her most pious, noble, and independent sons, to search 
for liberty of conscience in the howling wilderness of the 
Occidental world. The Puritan of New England, the Catholic 
of Maryland, the Episcopalian of Virginia, and the Friends 
of Pennsylvania, claimed, like the Hebrews in Egypt, the 
right of making the wilderness their temple to worship God. 
Yes, they leaped the barriers of the ocean's solitudes, and 
nestled down amongst the wild aborigines, to enjoy the 
liberties of body and mind, and escape oppression. Oh, 
horrid solecism! that such a land should now become the 
grand rendezvous of slaves, outnumbering those of any other 
country in the civihzed world. 

The year 1776 astonished the world with a new issue, 
which reached up and down and all around the circle of 
humanity. This issue was tendered to the oppressors of 
mankind throughout the world, by the patriotic Congress of 
the United States, who threw in the teeth of tyrants, feudaUsts, 
monarchists, the inheritors of power, the primogeniturists, the 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG. 141 

kidnaj^pers, slaveholders, man-despisers, and man-haters, these 
words of mighty import : " All meti are created equal, and 
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, 
amojirj ichich are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happbiess p^ 
and to vindicate the truth of this proposition, the people of 
these United States poured out their blood like water, for 
seven years. 

Philosophers, philanthropists, politicians and jurists had 
written tomes and foHos of metaphysical musings and abstrac- 
tions, to settle the starting point of man's existence — the 
rights of one as compared with those of another in coming 
into the compact of civil society. 

But in going up to a remote antiquity, to learn what prin- 
ciples governed those lawgivers who laid the foundations of 
civil pohty for those old nations in Europe, fable occupies the 
place of veritable liistory, and history teems with its thousand 
falsehoods, and bewilders the mind without instructing the 
judgment, and leaves the inquirer at the horizon's distance 
from certainty, if not from truth. 

The feudal system, the doctrine of primogeniture — that ex- 
ecutive, legislative and judicial powers, were matters of inheri- 
tance — may be considered the elementary doctrine of Europe. 

That men are born equal is a great moral proposition, com- 
ing from God, and as old as man, and grows out of His own 
eternal benevolence, by which it is said that God is no 
respecter of persons. 

The doctrine of primogeniture is that by which the oldest 
child, being male, is born to the inheritance of the whole 
landed estate of a father or relative, and the other children of 
no part ; by Avhich the oldest child of a king, or prince, or 
duke, earl, or noble, however weak, is born to the inheritance 
of executive, legislative and judicial power, while the son of 
the peasant, however cultivated by learning, or however 
superior by force of an exalted genius, is only born to obey. 



14:2 ALT AN STEWART. 

Many of the members of the House of Lords, in England, 
inherit their seat to legislate for their countrymen, by the 
same law by which they hold their father's estates. They 
inherit both. They inherit judicial power, wise or foolish, as 
a court of dernier ressort^ to reverse the decisions of the 
chancellor and twelve judges of England, on a statute which 
these members of the House of Lords inherited power to 
make. In England, nothing but idiocy, insanity or crime 
can de23rive some four or five hundred Englishmen from 
being law-makers and judges in the last resort ; and that, 
too, without the express consent of a living man in England 
manifested in their favor, but barely by inheritance. 

The feudal system, primogeniture, and that certain persons 
inherited the executive, judiciary and legislative powers of 
their country, and also inherited the allegiance and obedience 
of the nation, have been the fundamental laws of most Euro- 
pean countries from the downfall of the Roman Empire to 
this hour. 

Look at England and her colonies of fifty millions of inhabi- 
tants, and her East India possessions of one hundred millions 
more, making one hundred and fifty millions of human beings, 
or one-fifth of the human race, at the head of which, by force 
of the above doctrine, as Queen, is a young boarding-school, 
piano-plapng girl, eighteen years of age, with power to 
declare war and deluge the world in blood, make peace, veto 
the united legislation of Lords and Commons in ParUament 
assembled, to direct fleets and lead armies. 

The doctrine of this -world on the 3d of July, 1V76, was, 
that some persons are created superior to others, inheriting 
the right to make, judge of, and execute laws, Avhich the 
rest are created to obey. 

But before the sun went down on the 4th of July, 1776, 
the mighty moral discovery was proclaimed from this very 
city, that " all men are created equal, and endowed by their 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG. 143 

Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these 
rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their 
just power from the consent of the governed." 

Such men as Milton, a Sydney, and a Russell, in their 
musings upon the rights of humanity, had caught glimpses of 
this truth — shadowy and undefined, like the vision which" 
passed before the face of Eliphaz the Temanite — a spirit 
passed before them, " but the form thereof Avas not dis- 
cerned." They had prophet revelations of the dawning of a 
better day. Looking down the vast future, they beheld on 
those plains in the land of the setting sun, beyond the wilder- 
ness of waters, where Hesperus trenlbles on the borders of 
the circHng heavens, man in full possession of the great charter 
of his rights. 

This mighty discovery is but a definition of man, as con- 
sidered in relation to every other man. But no great i^oli- 
tician or philosopher in the European world dared make this 
definition known, because it would have been high treason 
against the fundamental laws of European society. This defi- 
nition would have brought to the block the best man in 
Europe, as the reward of his temerity. 

The three great truths, or political discoveries, are : 1st. 
Equality at birth. 2d. The universal endowment of the 
right to life, Uberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 3d. That 
all governments should be made to secure these high inter- 
ests. Therefore, all governments must be made by those 
whose interests they are intended to secure. Well might the 
politicians, philosophers, and philanthropists, believe the phi- 
losopher's stone had at last been discovered ; and that the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence had been pei- 
mitted to ascend, like Moses, into the Mount of God, to dis- 
cover, from a loftier altitude, the relations of man to man. 
Good men cried out in ecstasy, from every corner of the 



144 ALVAN STEWART. 

earth where the human mind was not so degraded as to have 
forgotten the loftiness of its lineage. 

The new and joyful era had arrived, in which the governed, 
to protect his liberty, his life, and pursuit of happiness, made 
and created the governor. This is a eepublican form of 
GOVERNMENT. The purchasc money of this truth was paid in 
blood, which flowed from the free hearts of our fathers. Oh, 
costly definition of human liberty ! The assertion of this 
great definition of man, in his social state, is, by force of its 
terms, the abolition of all slavery, wherever the definitic^ is 
honored or respected. 

But with us this definition of human rights is, practically, 
but an empty abstraction, instead of being the very hfe of 
our republicanism ? 

To tolerate slavery a single year in one of these States, 
after this Declaration of Independence, was a base hypocrisy, 
a violation of our engagements to mankind, and to God. 
" And for the support of this Declaration^^'' said they, 
"with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Provi- 
dence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our for- 
tunes, and our sacred honor." 

This awful and solemn promise^ made in behalf of Uberty, 
to all persons in this land, in the presence of mankind and the 
great Jehovah, in that awful moment of a nation's agony and 
peril, stands unredeemed^ uncancelled^ and unsatisfied j sixty- 
one years and three hundred and fifteen days have gone to 
join the years and days beyond the flood ; every year, every 
month, yea, every day and hour, have gone to the Judge of 
all the earth, clamoring, long and loud, for the execution of 
this voio. 

The issue of IV 76 was not alone between the governments 
of the old world, and their children, the colonies of the new. 
This issue, tendered by the framers of the Declaration of 
l7V6,»was done not only for the United States; but as the 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN EIGHT AND WRONG. 145 

representatives of human nature opi^ressed, their document 
was the property of both Americas, and of the New World. 
Liberty for all is demanded ; labor in all is honorable ; tyranny 
is everywhere odious ; kidnapping and stealing men and their 
labor is the essence of sin and meanness. Look at the pro- 
ducts of their issue. Behold thirteen of the United States 
free from slavery ! 

Six empires on this continent have pronounced that the 
color of a man's skin and his liberty have no relation to each 
other, and that all men are created equal and free, to wit — 
Mexico, Xew Granada, Central America, Venezuela, Chili and 
Peru. These blood-bought countries have started the great 
journey of liberty and independence, with slavery abolished 
throughout their great domains. In fact, the continent is an 
abolition continent ; the Catholic countries, in the march of 
liberty, have gone beyond this land of boasting Protest- 
antism. 

Under the glorious issue, framed by the fathers of indepen- 
dence, that all men are created equal, the bondmen of Massa- 
chusetts, of Connecticut, of New York, of Pennsylvania, and 
of New Jersey, have thrown down their broken yokes, as the 
trophies of the great definition, and the shout of freedom 
which burst forth and rolled in thunders through the unmea- 
sured prairies of the West, swept over the Rocky Mountains, 
and Mexico caught the joyful sound, and declared all men 
forever free in the land of Montezuma. 

The white, the black, the red, joined in the chorus : all 
MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. Ycs, fivc empires morc heard the 
thriUing soundsj and from the lonely mine-digger of the 
cavern-worlds beneath the bed of the Pacific, to the solitary 
shepherd on the snow-clad Cordilleras, and from the Mexican 
Gulf to the ever-blazing fires of the Andes, as the eternal truth 
went up the mountains and rolled over the pampas soli- 
tudes of the South, and flowed down the mighty rivers, aU 

1 



146 ALVAN STEWART. 

heard the words of resurrection and of hfe, and from the 
trance of ages stood up in the primeval sovereignty of man ! 

St. Domingo heard that man was born free and created 
equal, and, at the end of three centuries of slavery, stood 
erect — a nation of freemen, manufactured out of goods and 
chattels. England, in the days of George the Third, paid 
four hundred millions of dollars to destroy our definition of 
man, and in the reign of William the Fourth, the same nation, 
fifty-seven years after, paid one hundred millions of dollars to 
purchase it for eight hundred thousand slaves in the West 
Indies. Those new lexicographers who overturned the gov- 
ernments of the ncAV world by the poAver of a definition^ and 
cut the bands of transatlantic connection, and turned the 
world upside down, and unlocked suffering humanity and 
delivered it from its prison-house, if they could be sunmioned 
from the long dreamless sleep of their graves, would be over- 
come with astonishment to find thirteen States of this republic 
still clinging to slavery with a death-grasp ; and that their 
declaration, which had driven slavery from all other parts of 
the continent, was unable to deliver two and a half millions 
of the most wretched slaves the sun ever shone upon. These 
fathers, summoned from their graves, might well inquire 
what is the cost of this refusal by southern men to acknow- 
ledge our definition of man. 

And what w^ould be the answer ? The derision and col- 
lected scorn of an insulted world — the loss of liberty of 
speech, and the freedom of the press, and of conscience — too 
cowardly to discuss slavery, and afraid of the truth, — a loss 
of character for bravery and moral courage — loss of the bene- 
fit of the personal industry of the whites, that being con- 
sidered dishonorable ; w^hile to rob, steal, commit adultery, 
and covet, are virtues — the South by slavery, making their 
wdves, the white women, miserable — the slave losing the 
benefit of the Bible — the whites, by amalgamation with their 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN KIGHT AND WRONG. 147 

slaves, obtaining the privilege of selling their own children, 
brothers and sisters of selling their own brothers and sisters 
— the fear of assassination and insurrection — large sections 
of exhausted slave-lands, with a curse of perpetual sterility 
upon them — a universal brutifying of the black man's mind 
— universal concubinage — reducing two and a half millions of 
equals to beasts and chattels — ferocity, murder, duelling, 
called " chivalry " — the countless murders committed by 
slavery during the lapse of two hundred years, yet unatoned 
for and unavenged- — the white masters living under the stand- 
ing charge that all their wealth, their daily gains, the livings 
and subsistence of Congressmen, judges, governors, church- 
members, men and women, are made up and obtained by daily 
robberies and larcenies, stamped with the infinite meanness of 
inflicting assaults and batteries on the slaves, their natural 
equals, to compel them to give their masters an opportunity of 
stealing the fruits of another's industry — thirteen States living 
by petit larcenies. The acme of human glory, in relation to 
man's elevation, and the lowest depth of his guilty debase- 
ment, manifested in the same country ! 

In the old-world men inherited, as property, the three great 
departments of power — to wit, the Legislative, Judicial and 
Executive ; while in the slave States of the new world two 
hundred and fifty thousand irresponsible despots inherit and 
own, not only all the political power of two million, five 
hundred thousand slaves, but inherit and own their bodies 
—the fearful and wonderful workmanship of God — immortal 
chattels, celestial merchandise. 

The slaveholder's practice tells God He made an undue 
share of immortal mind, and it is his (the slaveholder's) busi- 
ness to re-adjust His highest work, by increasing the brute 
creation, in diminishing the immortal. The slaveholder, 
therefore, un-mans, and reduces to things, beings a Httle lower 
than angels. The same slaveholder would have laid his 



148 ALVAN 8TEWAET. 

wicted hands on angels, and impressed them into his service, 
if he could. 

Behold thirteen States of the American Republic, legislating 
for the division of stolen goods, enacting that stealing is a 
patriarchal institution, and adultery sanctioned by the Bible 
— passing the most formidable laws against any person who 
shall call them stealers of men, of women and of children. 
The brute force system surrounds and protects their awful 
larcenies upon mankind, 

J will present another rather unamiable view of slavery. 

A South Carolina slaveholder has a son by his slave, in his 
own likeness. That son must be deprived of the Bible. The 
father employs the brutal lash upon his son's body, to make 
him w^ork harder and earn more, that his father may steal 
those earnings, and with them send a missionary across the 
diameter of the globe, to tell the heathen, if they do not 
repent, they will be lost. "VYe Avill suppose a heathen in 
India repents, and out of gratitude becomes a missionary 
himself to South Carolina to warn the people of their sins, 
heathenism and slavery. But the Indian missionary would 
be murdered, by lynch law, for teaching the slave and mas- 
ter the same doctrines, on their own soil, w^hich the master 
at the expense of making his son a slave and a heathen at 
home, scourged and imbruted, had obtained means to send 
this very heathen in the old world. What would East Indian 
Christians think of South Carolina ethics, morality, or religion ? 

• THE NO-TONGUE MEN. 

But the adversaries of the great truth of man's equality at 
birth, have made new discoveries in behalf of falsehood and 
against liberty, viz., that slavery is too powerful and sensitive 
to be assailed with the tongue or the pen of free discussion. 
There are two divisions of the no-tongue, no-pen, no-discus- 
sion men. One party admits slavery an evil, but its constitu- 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN EIGHT AND WRONG. 149 

tional intrenchments are so deep and wide, and it is so 
awfully dangerous to speak or write against the institution of 
slavery, that they are willing to make an assignment of the 
liberty of speech, the right of petition, the power of the pen, 
the liberty of conscience, to the slaveholders, as a standing 
tribute, to be paid by the men of the north division of 
the confederacy, for the privilege of not being made field 
slaves for the present ; for the privilege of looking on the 
same sun at the same time ; of beholding the same waxing and 
waning moon ; although the fruit of this assignment has been 
wet with the blood of ten thousand annual murders, or twenty- 
seven daily ones, for each of the sixty years gone by, from mahg- 
nant passion, by violence and over-working and under-feeding. 

HOD-CARRIEES. 

The other division contends it is a Bible institution, a State 
institution, and a corner-stone of the Federal Union ; and 
further, that no man, woman or child, shall deny these propo- 
sitions, but with the penalty of death, with or without law. 

This last division of men are the head men and master 
builders in the Bastile of slavery, while those of the first 
division are the mere hod-carriers of slavery — the docile 
creatures at the North, who are willing to forego their 
humanity, their intellectual liberty in themselves ; and if they, 
as northern men, are willing to forego so much, they can see 
no reason why the slaves, for the benefit of our blessed Union, 
ought not, as good rejniUicans^ to be willing to forego hfe, 
liberty, wife, children, and endure stripes, hunger, nakedness, 
ignominy, and reproach, from generation to generation. Ay, 
these good patriots of the North can see no reason why two 
million five hundred thousand slaves ought not to be content 
to be stript of all things, and lashed over every mile of the 
journey of life, to furnish the cement, made of sweat, tears, 
and blood, w^hich binds the North and South together I 



150 ALVAN STEWAET. 



THE TEMPLE OF LIBERTY. 

To combat such weathern-beaten heresies and tnne-honored 
presumptions of slavery, and rebuke the craven spirit of its 
apologists, is the reason we have come together to dedicate 
this temple to Liberty. In the thirty-eighth year of the nine- 
teenth century, we find it necessary in America, the home of 
the oppressed, in both senses of the word, to erect a temple 
of Free Discussion, where the philanthropists of this genera- 
tion may meet for high and holy communion with the God of 
Freedom, and beseech his aid in the emancipation of the 
slave ! 

Yes, in a land on whose door-posts and gates liberty is 
inscribed, and among a people in whose mouths liberty and 
equality find so permanent an abode — in such a land this 
edifice is necessary, in order to welcome humanity and liberty 
to a home they may call their own. What will the slave- 
holder think as he passes this temple built for the deliverance 
of his despised slaves, for whom he never built a school-house, 
nor scarce a church ? 

What an array of accusations shall throng the slaveholder's 
guilty memory as he looks upon this building, every brick of 
which is a bitter reproach to him ! The mortar of the wall 
cries like an unappeased ghost against him. The foundation 
stones shall tell him they are softer than his heart. 

To this spot the pilgrims of humanity will come to worship 
God, in the land of the setting sun. 

As I entered your city, thought I, here is the peculiar 
home of the slave ; here are the descendants of Penn, the 
place where all men were declared to be born equal. Me- 
thought, in a sort of reverie, I saw a band of fugitive slaves 
flying from Maryland, wet with the swimming of rivers, faint 
with hunger ; their tattered clothing told me that they were 
the unpaid laborers of the wretched South. They sought the 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG, 151 

place where they might tell the history of their wrongs. But 
the doors of the noble Roman Catholic pile of architectural 
grandeur were shut against them ; they went to the Metho- 
dists' chapel, because their discipline was written by John 
Wesley, who loved the slave ; but they were answered, " our 
bishops cannot listen to the tales of slaves ; it is a political 
question, we cannot unite church and state ;" — to the Baptists, 
but they could not think of giving offence to their Georgia 
brethren ; to the Episcopalians, but the man in canonicals 
said, "it was his pleasure and his pride to say, his church 
had never been affected by ultraism ;" — they turned to the 
Presbyterians, who would have opened their church, as they 
said, " but from fear of disobliging a majority of the next 
General Assembly, who might want their house in which to 
denounce the Abolitionists ;" but directed them to the 
Quakers, who had always been their friends, and to their 
sympathies they commended them. To the Friends they 
bent their faltering and wretched steps — but they were told 
" they had always been their friends, and neither ate nor 
wore the slave's productions, but hoj^ed no stronger test 
would be required of them, for as to opening their meeting- 
houses to listen to the story of their wrongs, they did not 
feel free to do it." 

Oh, miserable fugitives ! — ^They have run the round of 
sectarian church-humanity; none have bidden them welcome. 
" Let us," they say, " go to the Hall of Independence, and 
see if the ghosts of Hancock, and Rush, and Franklin still 
hover there !" But the door of that old hall was barred and 
bolted by a generation who knew not Joseph. They were 
told, " it will not do to talk about your scourged backs, 
broken hearts, unpaid labor, severed families, ravished wives, 
and murdered sons ; that is apart of the compact y and if we 
of the North should listen to you, the two hundred and fifty 
thousand slaveholders would knock this Union into frag- 



152 ALVAN STEWART. 

ments, so there would not be enough left of our common 
country to make a school district. Get you gone, there is no 
j)lace for you here." 

They have turned away in despair. But what sudden 
change of joy is passing over their sad countenances? They 
have heard of this Hall — this Temple of Liberty built for the 
very purpose of giving a hearing to the wrongs of the 
afflicted, those who have none to help, those about to perish ! 
And here we are, thank God ! this day, in the first temple 
ever erected to the memory and redress of the slave's wrongs, 
since this world began ! This is a new place under the sun. 
It is pity's home, the abode of enlightened humanity. 

This is a temple dedicated to the insulted and outraged of 
our land. This will be their future court and senate house, 
where their hitherto untold wrongs shall come up in holy re- 
membrance before God, while the means for their deliverance 
shall be considered in the ample range of free discussion, 
imfettered by priest, deacon, people, or trustees. No house 
was ever erected for a nobler or more glorious purpose — 
there is not one on whose roof the sun of Heaven shines, 
from the Chinese temple of a hundred bells to the pagoda of 
India, from the mosque of St. Sophia to St. Paul's, from the 
cathedral of Milan to that of Westminster, around which the 
sympathies of noble hearts and the prayers of the poor will 
gather, as around this Hall dedicated to the Rights of Man ! 

This is the home of the stranger, the resting-place of the 
fugitive, the slave's audience-chamber. Here the cause of 
the slave, the Seminole, and the Cherokee shall be heard. 
Here, on this rostrum, the advocates of holy justice, and 
Heaven-descended humanity, shall stand and plead for poor 
insulted man ; here with boldness shall they untwist the 
guilty texture of those laws which from generation to gene- 
ration have bound men in the dungeons of despair. Here, 
too, shall criminal expediency be hung up to a nation's scorn 



THE GREAT ISSUES BETWEEN EIGHT AND WRONG. 153 

and the world's contempt ; that expediency which adjusts 
pohtical balances with the tears and blood of slaves, or sees a 
nation made homeless and exiled beyond the Mississippi for 
the purpose of securing its golden mines. Here shall the 
good cause come, though excluded from sectarian churches ; 
here the despised form of shrunken humanity swells beyond 
the measure of its chains, as it ascends and seats itself 
beneath this dome, and feels itself enlarged by surromiding 
compassion. 

This Temple of Liberty, I trust, will stand as a monument 
of honor to its founders, a standing reproach to the genera- 
tion of this country in the thirty-ninth year of the nineteenth 
century — a generation, whose House of Representatives, in 
Congress, could resolve that all petitions on the subject of 
slavery should lie on its table, " unread, unprinted, unreferred, 
undebated, and unconsidered" — a generation, who, in a fun- 
damental act of constitutional and organic law, could strike 
from its roll of voters, in the primary assemblies, forty thou- 
sand freemen, because of their complexion — a generation 
whose moral cowardice, only exceeded by their treachery to 
the rights of man, forced a necessity upon the true lovers of 
man and worshippers of God to erect this building, as a house 
where Truth might commune with her admirers. Patriotism 
with her followers, and Humanity with her friends. 

Let this Hall be like a moral furnace, in which the fires of 
free discussion shall burn night and day, and purify public 
opinion of the base alloy of expediency, and all those inver- 
sions of truth, by which first principles are surrendered in 
subserviency to popular prejudice, or crime ! 

Let the gratitude of every lover of his country be expressed 
toward the gentlemen, who, in erecting this building, have 
in the most solemn manner rebuked a guilty age. As brick 
after brick shall molder away, may the commg generations 
of mankind furnish men who shall restore the perished brick, 

7* 



154 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

the time-worn stone, and wasted wood of this temple, until 
wrong and crime shall be banished from our country, and the 
eye of the Angel of Freedom, gazing over its vast extent of 
territory, from the St. Croix to the Mexican Gulf, and from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, looks down upon no slave ! 



EXTKACTS EKOM LETTEES TO SAMUEL WEBB, 

OF PHILADELPHIA. 

Utica, 20th May, 1838. 
Dear Webb : 

The moment I was leaving home for Herkimer County, 
I went to the post-office, and what did I find ? Your letter 
confirming what I had heard the night before. Alas, alas, 
for Philadelphia ! Has she become the captive of slavery ? 
Is this the gratitude shown to Philadelphia for harboring, 
protecting and defending 500 slaveholders in her bosom ? 
Yes, the unpaid labor of the slave has been employed by the 
slaveholder to madden a ferocious populace to be guilty of 
Heaven-daring deeds, which only find a parallel in the atroci- 
ties of the French Revolution. 

The home of piety and humanity, and the refuge of 
oppressed men — a home fit for the spirits of the blessed — ^has 
been burnt by the paid stipendiaries of brutal, vindictive 
slaveholders — the life-guards of Pandemonium. The ashes 
of Franklin, Rush, Riy^enhouse, their tombs and memories 
are now in the keeping of a mob, encouraged and sustained 
by the knights of the lash. 

I trembled for you, your wife and children. I have shed 
tears of joy that you and yours are safe. What is property 
compared with your precious lives. I have been through 
a somewhat similar scene. 

Will not God overrule this outbreaking of the wrath of 
man, for the advancement of the great and holy principles of 
eternal liberty ? The plough has, indeed, gone, beam-deep, 
over Philadelphia. Now you can conquer your hardened 

155 



156 ALVAN STEWART. 

city. Men will come to their senses. This will add thou- 
sands of bold and true friends to our cause. Slavery itself 
will be burnt out at last. 

Oh, what a tale to float on the four winds of Heaven ! 
what an act to be related in the old world ! 

It would be a proud spectacle to see you draw a draft for 
a new and nobler hall, while the smoke of the first ascended 
like that of a mighty furnace to Heaven. Give my most 
profound and affectionate respects to all your co-workers in 
this holy enterprise. Be of good courage. The great moral 
battle is yours. God is with you. The voice of the civi- 
lized world is with you. The eyes of angels and men of the 
upper and this lower world are on you. The eyes of posterity 
will often moisten as they read the tragic page in which you 
are the consj^icuous actors. But, go on. The slave and the 
freeman all look to you to build a second hall to Liberty. I 
feel identified with your new Phoenix temple. They will not 
burn another. Public sentiment will roll over them. . . . 



16 June^ 1838, Utica. 
Dear Friend : 

I snatch the first moment that my pressing engagements 

and a journey, in and out, of 1,200 miles, with my wife and 

daughter, have allowed, to enjoy the satisfaction I now feel, in 

answering your second and third letters, which have imparted 

great pleasure to me, my family, and others, who have had the 

opportunity of listening to their highly interesting contents. 

There is something so ennobling to find you acquiring fresh 

strength and new vigor, by the persecutions which lower and 

thunder over your head and those of your noble coadjutors, 

that all you have suffered, and we by sympathy with you, 

seems to be a cheap mode of purchasing the development of 

those lofty points of character, that unflinching firmness, that 

holy boldness and unwavering constancy amidst the whirlwind 



EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS TO SAMUKL WKBIJ. 157 

of human passion and interests. Yes, sncli remarkable vir- 
tues as these can only be known in the hour of a nation's 
peril — can only be understood at the funeral of Liberty, and 
only seen at the grave of humanity. The great virtues are 
not to be used in the days of prosperity, but are to be brought 
forth for the sustentation of truth and justice in an hour of 
distress, when the sm-face-springs and bubbling brooks show 
us nothing but dusty and forsaken channels. 

On that night when the troops of slavery — a northern mob 
— howled through your streets, instead of sacrificing on the 
altar raised to liberty and consecrated by us in the temple of 
free discussion, their first sacrifice being the temple itself to 
the god of fire and darkness, whose wilhng subjects they are, 
how I have rejoiced, in such an hour, to see you, deliberately 
sketching, by the dying light of the first temple, a second one 
still more illustrious and beautiful. 

I came from Philadelphia home. The next week I went 
to the Herkimer Circuit and acquitted a woman charged with 
murder, and successfully defended a breach of promise of 
marriage case. On Monday, 28th May, I started for Boston, 
and attended, three days, the New England Convention. A 
Convention which wiU do much good in carrying out the per- 
manent quarterly subscrij^tions, the libraries, the petitioning 
Congress and the State legislature, in adding to the ranks 
of members, and, last, though not least, in inducing political 
action. All these points are to be made practical. Saturday, 
after Convention adjourned, I addressed the ladies of Boston, 
and added to the roll of members. Sunday, I addressed the 
people of Dorchester ; Monday, those of Duxbury ; and, Tues- 
day, those of Plymouth Rock, the place of the landing of our 
forefathers. Wednesday, I went, at urgent solicitation, 104 
miles overland to Concord, New Hampshire, where the State 
Society met on Thursday, and the legislature on same day. 
On Thursday I spoke three or four hours, and on Friday, our 



158 ALVAN STEWAET. 

friends asked the legislature for the State House for me ; 
but I lost it by thirteen votes— 115 to 128. Last year, out of 
150 members, our friends could get but 15 or 16 to vote for 
our having the hall. 

Gov. Hill yoked temperance and abolition together, and 
abused both objects shamefully. On Friday, our friends 
insisted that I should review the opinions of their governor, 
delivered in his message the day before, and the conduct of 
the assembly in refusing us the house. I did not spare them, 
I assure you. Some forty or fifty members present. Satur- 
day, I came some sixty miles to Groton, Mass., delivered an 
address on Sunday, two on Monday, and on Tuesday, went 
to Boston by Lowell, forty miles, and spent the day, and in the 
afternoon and night went to New York — saw the Executive 
Committee of the Parent Society and talked to them two 
hours, and got home on Thursday, at three r.M. The ther- 
mometer in the shade has been aU the time for the last eight 
days, at from 80 to 90° Fahrenheit. 

Be encouraged, dear brother ; you are engaged in a mighty 
work. Do not disturb the ruins of the Hall, if the corpora- 
tion will let them stand, for the space of five years to come. 
These burnt and ruined walls will make men think. The 
nation is fairly waked up. We will make politicians feel so, 
that they will be the first to run with their buckets to put out 
our blazing haUs. Write, and believe me ever thine. 



Utica, June 26th, 1838. 
I thank you most kindly for the box to which you allude 
and the minerals from Pennsylvania Hall therein contained. 
We are very thankful that you have any scrap of oak or pine 
from that Hall, the memory of which will last. That Hall 
seemed to be too noble and glorious a monument for this 
age ; and, instead of lifting itself as a mark of the tempest 



EXTRACTS FROM LETfERS TO SAMUEL WEBB. 159 

and a target for the thunder-bolt, standing from century to 
ceirtury, a great 'moral landmarJc on the coast of time, up- 
braiding the surrounding churches and public edifices, as 
unheedful of the cries of bleeding humanity, forcing the 
world to see that the slaveholder had locked up the northern 
churches, and public halls, and strutted in bold defiance with 
these keys hanging from his girdle ; instead of standing such 
conspicuous beacon from age to age, our Hall, when the 
slaveholders demanded the key, as if conscious of the con- 
tamination, blushed into a blaze of indignation, and expired, 
only to live on the pages of history, being satisfied that she 
Ijad done more, in the four days of her existence, for the 
cause of humanity, than all the halls and churches erected in 
the land. . , . 



EEPOKT OF A SPEECH 

DELIVERED BEFORE A 

JOINT COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATURE OF VERMONT, 

Raised to inquire into the propriety of reporting and passing Resolutions 
addressed to Congress, praying that body to abolish the internal Slave 
Trade between the States, Slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the 
Territories of the United States, and to prevent the admission of new 
Slave States, and Texas into the Union, by special request and invitati<fn 
from the Vermont State A. S. Society, on the 26th, 26ih and 21th of 
October, 1838. 

The resolutions passed the Senate by the following vote : "Yeas, 
22 ; nays, 0." In the Assembly they were carried by acclamation, 
and no negative was called. 

SPEECH. 

Honorable Gentlemen of the Joint Committee : You 
are clothed with power for the most exalted purjjoses ; not to 
inquire into the propriety of a bridge over a river, the suit- 
ableness of granting a bank charter in this or that town, of 
increasing or diminishing the tax on this or that district or 
county ; no, your duty extends to eight times as many peo- 
ple as those who constitute this sovereign and independent 
State, who are your countrymen, your brethren, your fellow 
beings, born in the republic, not to its rich inheritance, but 
its orphanage ; not to its glory, but to its dishonor ; not to 
its rich treasure of knowledge and religion, but its utter intel- 
lectual bereavement and heathenism ; not to its liberty and 
independence, but its slavery and loss of all things ; not to its 
bright and glorious hope, but its blackness of darkness, in 
despair. In behalf of two and a half millions of your 

160 



VERMONT SPEECH. I6l 

wretched fellow men, found in your own glorious but dis- 
graced country, the cry for pity, help and mercy is wafted in 
every southern wind which blows over the lands of chains 
and tears, and has brought to Vermont the deep lamenta- 
tions of the unpitied, the unwept, and the unmourned. 

THE FEEEMEX OF VERMOXT. 

To what friend should the slave sooner go than to the 
freemen of these vales and moimtams ? 

The dark, unbroken w^ilderness, which half a century since 
covered this beautiful land, was not removed by a generation 
of unpaid slaves — no, the wliite man alone w^as the pioneer. 
The sturdy birch, the majestic elm, the solid beech, the noble 
maple, the hated massive hemlock and the cloud-propping 
pine — the Anakim of the vegetable kingdom — have fallen 
before the freemen of Vermont, and made the earth to trem- 
ble in their dying groans. Ye middle-aged and aged men, 
turn to your early remembrance, when the valleys and hills at 
midnight were illuminated with the funeral piles of these 
forest giants ; who was high priest, who presided at the 
sacrifice ? The sunburnt and hard knuckled freeman of Ver- 
mont stood in his sombre linen frock, his sacerdotal robes, 
and performed the duty. No unpaid slave ever heard the 
cruel sound of the master's horn call his imrested limbs from 
his piles of straw to his miserable toil in Vermont. No ; 
your mountains would have held their breath, and refused 
an echo to .that hated sound. Vermont was the first born 
child after the Revolution. Although she came into the 
confederacy amidst storms and tempests, which lowered upon 
her birth ; yet she was born perfect in all her limbs ; her 
moral faculties showed that the Declaration of Independence 
was her noble sire. She was not like her next sister, Ken- 
tucky, who came misshapen, limping, half made up, with 
rickets before her birth and ever since. Yes, those moral 



162 ALVAN STEWART. 

rickets, slavery, have sadly disfigured that sister, and her 
unwillingness to be cured of her complaint, proves that her 
mind is as badly affected as her body is deformed. Poor 
Kentucky is not ashamed to steal, but too proud to work, 
and too dishonest to pay those who do ! 

Vermont has penetrated to the central line, between the 
equator and the pole, and on the outer line of the nation, in 
the far North, last year, sent up her resolutions to Congress 
against slavery; those resolutions were truly the moral 
aurora horealis^ the true northern lights, to alarm the proud, 
terrify the wicked, enlighten the ignorant ; yea, to intimidate 
those rickety imps and monsters who feed and gorge them- 
selves on human flesh and blood. 

Vermont, in presenting those noble resolutions to an 
American Congress, in face of so much leagued malice and 
cruelty, appeared Hke an angel of mercy walking upon 
the high places of the earth. Who might not, on that day, 
have coveted the honor of a birthplace in your State ? If 
seven cities of antiquity contended, each, for the honor of 
being the birthplace of Homer, then may the man of Ver- 
mont be justly j^roud that his State was the birthplace 
of these resolutions, and stood in the front rank of 
humanity, and first as a State which mounted the parapets 
of slavery. 

Vermont, before her existence as a State, had tasted of 
oppression. She struggled into existence under twelve 
acts of outlawry passed against her by the State of New 
York. 

You had a double war for your independence — yea, treble 
— with the British Empire and the State of New York and 
New Hampshire, each claiming jurisdiction over you. Your 
mountains and forests were your abiding auxiharies in these 
contests, these mountains, the native abodes of liberty, the 
oldest citadels of humanity, the blessed homes of struggling, 



VERMONT SPEECH. 163 

j)ersecuted and unsubdued freedom. Look at this State in 
its infancy, sixty years ago, with but 5,000 men who could 
handle the axe or the sword, tearing down the forests, an 
unacknowledged community, contending for an existence, 
while England, New York and New Hampshire sought to 
take it away. Yet Vermont, the real Switzerland of 
America, came into existence when political and personal 
liberty were prized, next after the salvation of the soul, as the 
greatest good human authority could confer. Slavery, in no 
form, ever sprouted on this soil. Physicians assert that cer- 
tain persons are predisposed to certain diseases, so I may say 
of the citizens of this State, on the great question of humanity 
now pending before the American people, they have a predis- 
l^osition to join against any cause or question in which liberty 
is threatened with destruction or overthrow ; to range them- 
selves against the oppressor, and with the oppressed, to seat 
themselves by the side of the prisoner, and lock arms with him 
who is ready to perish. She is ready to say to the bond- 
man, *' Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from follow- 
ing after thee, for whither thou goest I will go, and where 
thou lodgest I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, thy 
God shall be my God ; where thou diest I will die, and there 
will I be buried ; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if 
aught but death part me and thee." 

VERMONT FOREMOST FOR LIBERTY. 

The resolutions, adopted by the legislature of Vermont, ad- 
dressed to Congress, last year, covering the extent of ordinary 
constitutional action, on the part of the confederacy, cheered 
the heart of the philanthropist, and armed humanity herself 
w^ith a new power to march to the terrible contest between 
the forces of light and darkness, truth and falsehood, liberty 
and slavery. In the character and spirit of those resolutions 
the slaveholder must have seen shadowed out, in coming 



164 ALVAI^ STEWART. 

days, his indictment, trial, and final overthrow. Then he saw 
a sovereign State march into the field. Then the slaveholder 
found out that the falsehood of the addleheaded charge, that 
the Abolitionists were only a few decayed old women, sub- 
ject to hysterics, and a few moon-struck, fanatical men, who 
nursed and fed themselves on visions, and spent their time in 
trances, or lost themselves by diving into the mysteries of 
prophecy, and second sight, or in writing commentaries upon 
Mormon Bibles. But these noble-minded men of the South, 
whose minds soared into the lofty regions of chivalry, where 
women-whipping is one of the most distinguished features or 
employments of that chivcUry (for except in those peculiarly 
gay and gallant regions women are not whipped) through 
John C. Calhoun, the prince of nullification, raised the cry, 
that before the Vermont resolutions were considered, by the 
Senate, a string of resolutions,'all split out of one log, and by 
Mr. Calhoun, must first be considered, as a counter state- 
ment, to those from Vermont, as a sort of breakwater to 
prevent their consequence ! Thus the culprit, arraigned by 
Vermont, was determined to open his case, introduce his 
evidence and sum up his cause, and make the most of his 
argument, before the prosecution was heard, and thus fore- 
stall the judgment of the court. I have no doubt, this new 
and improved mode adopted by the slaveholders in Congress, 
of trying a criminal, would relieve the gallows from bending 
vmder the weight of many a pirate, and the State prison from 
the confinement of many a scoundrel. These highly cultivated 
slaveholders deny the slave's right of petition on any subject, 
any more than mules, dogs or horses, on the ground that 
slaves have no rights to be violated ; no matter what is done 
to the slave by any one, he as a slave having no rights, nor 
any interest in any rights, which can be violated, therefore 
cannot as a slave assume to ask for the redress of any 
injuries, because he, the slave, has nothing which can be 



VERMONT SPEECH. 1^5 

injured. He has nothing which can be the subject of legisla- 
tive address, on his own prayer, for to admit it, would be 
admitting there was something the master had not crushed 
and destroyed, in appropriating the slave to himself. The 
slave, says the master, cannot petition for himself for anything, 
therefore the freeman can ask no greater right for the slave 
than the slave could for himself, therefore the freeman can- 
not petition for him. And if it be right to deny the petition 
of the slave, in person, or the freeman for him, therefore it 
must be right to deny the petition of a sovereign State, who 
asks for the same thing, yea, the whole nation, if it ask for 
anything in behalf of the slave who has nothing, and is en- 
titled to nothmg, on the ground, that the nation is agent 
for the State, who is agent of the freeman, who is agent of 
the slave, or nothing ; this whole matter resting on a legal 
nothing^ no matter how high' you pile considerations upon 
nothing, and extend the boundaries of nothing, to nothing it 
must come at last. In this bark-mill circle southern mind 
revolves, on the question of slavery. We know not which 
most to wonder at, the gross inhumanity it manifests, or the 
shallow logic by which they affect to maintain this proposi- 
tion. Let us examine for a moment one of the prominent 
reasons, why there appears to be such a numerous and active 
force upon the floor of Congress, ready to contend for propo- 
sitions, which, for absurdity, are only exceeded by their 
cruelty, and seem to mock all the pretensions which civiliza- 
tion and Christianity ever claimed in their advancement of 
the human race. 

THING-KEPEESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS. 

The American Congress is, without doubt, an anomaly as a 
deliberative body, in the civilized world. In that most 
august representative body of twenty-four sovereign and 
independent States, are twenty-eight members elected, in 



166 ALVAN STEWAET. 

consequence of two and a quarter millions of slaves existing 
in one part of the nation from whence these twenty-eight 
members come, not to represent them, but to oppose any 
plan or project which might tend to the benefit of those 
slaves, to whose very numbers these twenty-eight members 
were indebted for their seats. By counting five slaves as 
three white or free persons, as the basis of Congressional 
representation, these twenty-eight members of Congress hold 
their seats as the chattel representatives, or as the represen- 
tatives of things and not of men, and possess or claim the 
power to silence their chattel or thing -constituency^ when it 
asks or seeks to become a man-constituency^ and also claims 
the liigh prerogative of silencing their associate members of 
Congress, who would seek to elevate the chattel-constituency 
of the twenty-eight to the man basis. The twenty-eight 
claim that it is a distinct portion of their ofiicial duty to 
countervail the sympathy and humanity of the age, when it 
shall manifest a desire to elevate their constituents to the 
common right and privileges of mankind. These twenty- 
eight men come to represent nothing but the congregated 
absurdities and all the marked moral obliquities of this period 
of the world. Let it not be supposed I am a stranger to the 
fact, that the twenty-eight assert that three-fifths of their 
slaves are added to the rest of the population, as a constitu- 
tional rule, for the purpose of fixing the basis of representa- 
tion, the same as women and children are counted at the 
North, for the purpose of fixing the rate. 

These twenty-eight men come as a sort of body-guard to 
lust, laziness, unpaid wages, ignorance, heathenism, the rights 
of the lash, amalgamation, prostitution, the shooting down 
unpaid laborers for leaving their employments, divorcing 
husbands and wives, separating parents and children, the sell- 
ing men, women and children by private contract, or by public 
outcry ; yea, the right of vending unborn generations ; yes, 



VERMONT SPEECH. 167 

the exalted privilege, peculiar to the slaA^eholder, of selling his 
own children, his own brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews 
and nieces, into the most miserable slavery, and all and every 
the right of duelling, chivalry, assassination, murder, and 
generally all and every and each of the varied and multiplied 
rights embraced within the circle of the most unbounded 
inhumanity. 

These twenty-eight Congressmen are the chosen gladiators, 
to dispute every inch of ground, w^hich the humanity of Con- 
gress may desire to occupy. These are the men, whose 
votes are employed to gag the House of Representatives of 
the nation. These are the twenty-eight men to lead the 
House on the forlorn hope of suppressing debate, and take the 
liberties of the nation by storm, and lead them into captivity 
without the hope of ransom. These are the men, to deny the 
right of petition, when it affects their tiling -constituency. 
These are the men, elected different from all the rest, not to 
favor but to resist all measures offered by others, for the 
benefit of their thing-constituency. These are the men who, 
under the pretence of preserving order and quiet, in the 
glory of representatives, produce w^ild chaos and primeval 
night, amidst their maniac screams of Order ! Okder ! ! 
ORDER ! ! ! These are the men who, wdth oaths, at their 
private boarding-houses, on the 21st December, 1837, swore 
that " if any man from the North (as your able Slade had 
done) should bring in a resolution, or a law^, to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia again, they Avould put him to 
death ! !" 

Their notions of government may be inferred from their 
favorite maxim, that "slavery is the corner-stone of our 
republic." If slavery be " the corner-stone," it is not difficult 
to predict of what materials the side, the end w^alls of this 
edifice would be erected, if these twenty-eight gentlemen 
were allowed to remodel the fabric of American institutions. 



168 ALVAN STEWAET. 

There are six republics on this continent, in North and South 
America, which are without those " corner-stones," so much 
valued by these far-seeing politicians. 

Beside the peculiar duties which have been assigned to the 
twenty-eight thing-representatives^ they are expected to do a 
certain amount of bullying, hectoring, gasconading, threaten- 
ing, challenging, duelling, rifle-trying, pistol-practising, so as 
to compel from northern members, their profound respect for 
the peculiar institutions of the South. They, the twenty- 
eight, are mechanically, as the clock strikes the hour, at 
least one hundred times, in a session of Congress, to threaten 
to split the Union all to shivers ; and at least on one hundred 
diiferent questions, from the question whether a dead horse, 
killed in the late war, should be paid for, up to that of the 
abolition of slavery. 

They, the twenty-eight, are ex-officio the wardens and 
keepers of the wedges and beetles, by which they will under- 
take to split the Union into pieces or parts to suit purchasers, 
from a State down to a s'chool district. 

The great slave wedge, we are assured by these nation- 
splitters, would easily rive and sunder the Union, from the 
capes of the Delaware to the Mandan towns. If these men 
will sacrifice the Union for their love of slavery, we will 
sacrifice slavery for our love of the Union. "We hope, by the 
goodness of an overruling Providence, that we shall be able 
to add two and a half millions of new votaries and supporters 
of a republican form of government, who, having tasted all 
the ills which may be practised under it, may also enjoy all 
the blessings which by any possibility it may confer. 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

May it please the Honorable Committee : We will now 
look at slavery in the District of Columbia. This district 
has been a sort of man-menagerie, in which the grand experi- 



VERMONT SPEECH. 169 

ment has been tried for thirty-eight years, by the consent of 
the nation, to see whether men can be converted into beasts, 
or things, by putting them into the same legal scale, annex- 
ing the same legal consequences to their acts — except where 
cruelty is to be practised, for there the punishments would, 
from their variety and rigor, assume that the offenders were 
above men, yea, the compeers of angels. 

One would think the 200 years of slavery and debasement, 
on this continent, of man, in the shape of a slave, was a 
period of sufficient length, to settle the question, whether 
slaves could be learned to walk on all fours, like the beasts, 
or not. But no, the grandeur of his celestial descent, his 
heavenly lineage, the cajDital of mind the slave receives direct 
from God, will forever make an impassable gulf, between 
this noble, though abused immortal, and the beasts which 
perish. 

To suppose it necessary, to make a parade of constitutional 
learning, to convince any man, who feels and acknowledges 
the common import of words and sentences, is to suppose 
that nothing can be made certain in the English language. 

It is clearly expressed in the Constitution of the United 
States, that Congress has power, given by the Constitution, 
to " legislate in all cases whatever, over the District of Co- 
lumbia," and therefore has a right to abolish slavery; the 
same right that it had to establish it, because that Congress 
adopted it, and therefore has a right to abrogate it. To say 
that Congress has not the power to abolish slavery in the 
District, is a crime against the English language, as well as 
our common humanity. The language is explicit beyond the 
most malignant carpings of the most fiendish criticism. To 
say it is contrary to the spirit of our Constitution, is to say 
that the preamble to the Constitution is false, which says " it 
was ordained for the purpose of establishing justice and 
liberty P It is as clear as though it had been written, '' Con- 

8 



170 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

gress shall have power to abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia." It is one of those cases where the proposition 
is itself more clear, than any argument, evidence, or illustra- 
tion assumed as true, can make it. " Clarius luce^''^ more 
clear than light, as the Roman orator once said. Whoever 
undertakes, by other arguments than the text of the Consti- 
tution itself, to make it appear that Congress have, and 
should exercise the abolition power it possesses, for the benefit 
of 7000 persons, would make the question more doubtful by 
words, and might as well undertake to prove the existence of 
the sun, by his light reflected from the moon, rather than by 
his own shiuing, in all the glories of noon. 

But many will assert it inexpedient to abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia, because the slaveholder is opposed 
to it. 

Shall w^e Avait till the slaveholder is wilHng, where the 
nation has the power ? Shall ^YQ reverse the first 2:>rinciples 
of our government, and allow the minority to rule, and 
commit crime, w^hen the majority should rule, and must be 
responsible for all the wrong and misery which they have 
power to prevent ? 

Is the friendship of wicked men and slaveholders more 
important to a majority of the nation than an approving 
conscience, which is the voice of God, and the opinion of 
good men all round the world ? If the free States refuse 
(having the power as they really possess it) to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, it becomes, truly, the sin of the 
North, of the free States, and on us rests the responsibihty 
of every pain of mind or body, which may be endured by 
those 7000 slaves, Avhich they would not sufier, Avere they 
free ; yea, more, of the horrid countenance Ave seem to lend to 
the slaveholders, in the States, Avliere they, as States, claim. 
to have the only poAver to abolish slavery. Yes, slavery may 
put forth a very plausible defence of the system, by saying 



VERMONT SPEECH. 171 

that the North, without profit from slavery, permit it to 
exist, when they have power to abolish it, therefore, they of 
the North cannot consider slaveholding very wrong, or they 
Avonld abolish it, where they have the odium of its existence, 
without the profit of its continuance. 

DUTY OF THE STATES. 

Gentlemen of the committee, we now come to the legisla- 
ture of Vermont, asking it, with great respect, to embody 
and express to Congress the desire of this sovereign State, 
that slavery should be immediately and forever aboHshed in 
the District of Columbia. Your citizens of this State have 
besought you by their petitions on this subject to lend sufier- 
ing humanity a helping hand. 

The peculiar posture of aifairs in the present Congress 
seems to invite the States to com.e forward in their highest 
legislative capacity, and rescue the Constitution of our com- 
mon country from the most gross violations ; violations for 
which every patriot should tremble for the perpetuity of our 
blood-bought hberties. The citizens of Vermont, as well as 
those of the other free States, have sent thousands and tens 
of thousands of petitions to Congress, praying for the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the District of Columbia, and the internal 
slave trade and for kindred objects ; all of which, in the past 
year, have been laid upon the table, unread, unreferred, un- 
piinted, undebated, and unconsidered. 

CONSTITUTIOXCIDES. 

Thus have the members of Congress, from the free States, 
bowed themselves lower, in base submission, to the footstool 
of slavery, than on all other propositions ever before united. 
But the northern members, who voted the Patton gag, before 
they got so low, had to grope their way down on a ladder 
of perjury. There was no other invention by which -they 



17^ ALVAN STEWART. 

could have debased themselves, and found for themselves 
so abject a point. It was only by jumping the life to 
come. 

The Constitution has secured the eternal and Heaven- 
descended right of petition to the people of this country ; 
not that the Constitution gave or conferred this right ; no, 
sirs, it barely spoke against its violation, it threw its power- 
ful arms out in defence of this right, coeval with man. But 
these members of Congress who voted for the resolution of 
the 21st December, 1837, to lay the petitions of the freemen 
and women of the North on the table, unread, unconsidered, 
and unprmted, must stand on the page of history in all com- 
ing time as the assassins ; yes, the perjured assassins of their 
country's reputation, for the infamous purpose of upholding 
slavery in the capital of the nation, and the slave trade 
between the States, in its most diabolical form which this 
world has ever seen, in the long range of 600 years. ' 

The regicides of Charles the First — many of them perished 
at home on the scaffold, others died of misery and want in 
foreign lands, the objects of the world's contempt and scorn, 
for having tried, condemned, and executed their sovereign. 
These regicides alleged that they destroyed the king, and 
broke through the Constitution of England, in vindication of 
humanity outraged, and for the delivery of liberty from 
chains. But how much greater judgment should be awarded 
against those members of Congress, who, on the 21st Decem- 
ber, 1837, laid their sacrilegious, polluted hands upon the 
written Constitution of their country, after they had solemnly 
sw^orn by the retributions of the eternal judgment to main- 
tain its provisions — then to turn round and violate that Con- 
stitution ; not as the regicides did to aid human liberty, but 
for the malignant purpose of transfixing liberty to a cross, 
and make her expire in her own temple, as a mark of open 
shame ! Before these constitutio7icides could withhold the 



VERMONT SPEECH. 173 

consideration of the wretched slave's case, they had to walk 
over the dead body of the Constitution of their coinitry. 

This generation is so overcome with the bewildering cry 
raised against the Abolitionists in behalf of the southern 
rights, that they have not yet opened their eyes and ears to 
the greatest crimes which have ever been committed on this 
continent ; and those crimes, to add to their malignity, have 
been committed under the forms of the Constitution. 

But when truth shall triumph over delusion and the fanati- 
cism of a mistaken and slavery-ridden age, then shall some 
philosophic Hume, in the next century review the distress- 
ing transactions of this ; then will the 21st December, 1837, 
be reckoned the most gloomy and disastrous day which has 
distinguished the annals of this nation. If the 4th July, 1*776, 
be a day standing preeminent for the grandeur of those prin- 
ciples which we then adopted, the 21st December, 1837, may 
stand as an inauspicious contrast ; if the former was the birth 
of American liberty, the latter appears like its funeral. 

Behold the monstrous crime committed by the majority of 
the House of Representatives of the United States, as each 
member responded " aye " to the famous, or rather infamous 
resolution of Patton of Virginia, on the 21st December, 1837. 
This resolution was passed under the tourniquet of the pre- 
vious question, or strangled debate. The previous question, 
according to parliamentary law, is intended to put an end to 
a useless and protracted debate, after all have been heard, 
and the question viewed, in aU those shapes and forms through 
full and free discussion, in which they may wish to present it. 
Then, if garrulous and prating members are disposed to wear 
out the patience of the House, and waste its time, the pre- 
vious question may be moved, which puts an end to the ex- 
hausted debate. But here the most important question which 
ever came before a deliberative body of men, was taken, 
before a word of debate, under the call or miction of the pre- 



174 AI.TAN STEWART. 

vious question, by which the House of Representatives agreed 
that all petitions, on the subject of slavery, unread and uncon- 
sidered, should lie upon the table. 

Behold five crimes committed by each member who said 
"aye " to this resolution, in the same breath. 1st. The Con- 
stitution was violated on the subject of petition. 2d. The 
previous question was prostrated to an object diametrically 
opposite to that for w^hich it was intended, by wdiich the 
members opposed to the Patton resolution (which was a vio- 
lation of the Constitution), were constrained to give a silent 
vote against a mighty infraction of the Constitution, without 
being able to speak a single word to beseech the House not 
to take this most fatal and unconstitutional leap. 3d. The 
members who said " aye " committed perjury ; for they vio- 
lated that Constitution which they had sworn to support. 
4th. There was a special inhumanity, amounting to a hideous 
offence, in refusing to inquire into the condition of two and a 
half milhons of slaves, or any part of them, or the laws by 
which they w^ere deprived of the inestimable boon of liberty. 
5th. There was moral treason committed against white and 
black, bond and free, every man, woman and child in the 
republic, in violating their rights, their liberties, their humanity 
struck dow^n through the sides of the Constitution ; yes, it 
was high treason against the age, the humanity of this nine- 
teenth century, and the everlasting commands of the great 
Jehovah. 

What monosyllable ever pronounced by man in any day, 
in any place, was so big with destruction to all the precious 
hopes of man ? Yes, before this high decree, the slave and 
the freeman, the sovereign State, and an American Congress, 
all alike, stood speechless. This was despotism in its most 
solemn form, which orders the victim to be silent, which it 
intends for sacrifice. If the victim, the Constitution, could 
hsve spoken through its friends, and pleaded against her OAvn 



VERMONT SPEECH. 1Y5 

violation, her brightest jewel would not have been ravished 
from her in silence. 

Open the black and bloody pages of despotism, recorded 
in the annals of past ages, and let us see wliether ever in one 
day, Nero, Caligula, Domitian, Dionysius, Aurelian, Bnjazet, 
Robespierre, and Bonaparte, those flails of Almighty God^ 
did roll back the car freighted with the most precious in- 
terests and hopes of man, as far into the night of barbarism 
and blood, as these members of Congress, who, on the 21st 
December, 1837, said " aye " to the Patton slave resolution. 

The amazing criminahty of this transaction appears more 
dreadful, when it is considered that this resolution barred the 
only avenue of the wretched slaves, or their friends, to the 
District of Columbia, and denied all access to the slave terri- 
tories, it cut off the humane from the hope of abolishing the 
internal slave trade, and impliedly forbid our protesting 
against the annexation of that stranded mass of villains, the 
cullings of the Avorld's prisons, Texas. 

THE POWDER OF CONGRESS. ■* 

The very reason urged by the South for her counting five 
of her slaves the same as three of our citizens, was, that it 
might form a counterpoise to that power, given by the Con, 
stitution to Congress, " to regulate foreign commerce, com- 
merce between the States and the Indian tribes." The South 
contending that the North, only being interested in com- 
merce, would regulate it to the injury of the South, whether 
foreign or domestic, and that the South must have an addi- 
tional number of representatives, in Congress, by counting 
their slaves, to countervail the action of the North on 
questions of foreign and internal commerce. 

Under the power to regulate foreign commerce, we 
abolished the old African slave trade. Under the power to 
regulate internal commerce between the States, we petition 



1T6 ALVAN STEWART. 

Congress to abolish the internal slave trade between the 
States. I^ow the South denies that Congress has the consti- 
tutional power to regulate commerce between the States, so 
as to confine the slaves to the States, where they now are. 
Yes, after we have purchased this power so dearly of the 
South (which gives the South twenty-eight additional mem- 
bers), we now find the South denying its very existence ; in 
fact, the very consideration money, if I may so speak, for the 
privilege of counting five slaves as three free persons, is 
denied. 

Why do the South deny it ? Because it is the great door 
to the slave Bastile, left in the side of the constitutional tem- 
ple, which, when Ave have power to abolish it in the District 
of Columbia, we shall have, the same day, power to enact a 
law, that no slaA'e shall be taken or removed, or sold Irom 
one State to another, under the penalty of perpetual imprison- 
ment or death. What is to be the eftect of such a law on 
slavery ? First, to confine the slaves to the States, where 
they are on the day of the enactment of the law. The States 
of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the western 
parts of the Carolinas have, for twenty years past, maintained 
themselves by selling their surplus slaves to the States of 
Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, and 
not by selling the productions of slaves, but by seUing slaves 
themselves, as the great article of commerce to the great 
cotton and sugar districts of the fiir South. Now if these 
slave-growing States, in the north end of the slave section of 
the country, were unable to sell slaves, the master and slave 
could not live together, the slaves of Maryland and Virginia 
would eat up their masters, and the masters must emancipate 
in self-defence, to save themselves from destruction. Again, 
the States of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and others, if 
they could not import slaves from the north end of the slave 
region, there is such havoc annually by death among the 



VERMONT SPEECH. 177 

slaves of the great planters, hj the unhealthiness of the 
climate and the cruel treatment of overseers, tliat in less than 
seven years, if no slave could be imported, into those southern 
regions, one half of the plantations would lie uncultivated 
for want of slaves. 

This power to regulate commerce between the States, is 
one of the ihighty powers of the confederacy which has lain 
hitherto, in a great degree, dormant, although purchased at 
such a cruel and bitter expense, now amounting to twenty- 
eight members of Congress ; yet it may, if properly wielded, 
become the great battering ram to knock down the fortifica- 
tions of slavery. The power to regulate foreign commerce 
was the battle-axe with which we sundered the neck of 
the old African slave trade, in six successive cuts, of Con- 
gress, enacted at different periods from 1808 to 1824. 

Let no one say that the word " regulate," as used in the 
Constitution, may not mean to alter, change, destroy, abolish, 
or annihilate. That question has been settled in favor of the 
above definitions by every department of the government, by 
both houses of Congress, the President, yes, and several 
times by the Supreme Court of the United States. These 
questions of "regulation" under the Constitution, have 
been up for consideration by our Senate, in forming 
treaties of peace ; declarations of war by Congress, em- 
bargoes, non-intercourse acts — this word " to regulate " 
foreign commerce, and commerce between the States, has 
drawn forth an immense amount of ingenious reasoning to 
restrict the word in its meaning, but the Supreme Court of 
the United States, as well as the other departments of gov- 
ernment, have declared that Congress have power to annihi- 
late and destroy any branch of commerce, for this is one mode 
of regulating it, if Congress in their wisdom see fit to adopt 
it. The abolition of the old African slave trade had no con- 
stitutional authority for its exercise, except what was derived 

8* 



178 ALYAN STEWAKT. 

from the Constitution, which confers ou Congress the power 
to regulate foreign commerce. The regulation Congress 
adopted, was the utter abolition and annihilation of the 
trade. 

By the abolition of the African slave trade, the internal 
slave trade sprung up in this country, with more than all the 
horrors whicli belonged to this bloody commerce on the 
African shore. 

THE MAKTS OF BLOOD. 

The bloody slave coasts of the Gambia, and Senegal of 
Africa, were transferred to the Potomac, the James, the 
Pedee, Cooper and Ashley, and the Savannah rivers. Wash- 
ington, Georgetown, Alexandria, Richmond, Charleston and 
Savannah were the marts of blood, where those human- 
being contracts were made, where Avives and husbands, 
parents and children were torn asunder, and uttered a 
frightful shriek and farewell of despair. Yes, these towns 
have been the grand slaughter-house of the holiest of the 
human ties. AYhen inquest shall be made for blood, well 
might these Chorazins, these Sodoms and Gomorrahs, cry for 
the Alleghanies to fall on them, and hide them from the 
accusing ghosts of ruined and thrice murdered families ! This 
trade in slaves on the high seas, or on the coast of Africa, 
American law and American humanity has pronounced 
to be the greatest crime which man can commit against man, 
and has declared its horrid perpetrators, pirates, and punish- 
able with death. Oh ! honorable inconsistency ! That which 
is a crime of piracy three thousand miles off is changed by 
our laws by the same lawgivers and a part of the same code, 
when transacted at home in our own sight, and so far from 
being the highest of human offences, it becomes respectable 
business, not inconsistent with the duties of a private citizen, a 
judge, a President of the United States, a member of any of 



VERMONT SPEECH. 179 

the Christian churches, yea, a minister in those churches ; 
such a mighty change takes place in the criminal code of the 
United States by saihng through some forty degress of 
longitude, from the coast of Africa to the capital of the 
United States at AYashington. 

SOUTHERN THREATS. 

Georgia and South Carolina threatened their sister States 
that they would not come into the Union, unless the Consti- 
tution of the United States guaranteed the continuance of 
the old African slave trade twenty years after the adoption 
of the Constitution, because they alleged they could pur- 
chase slaves direct from Africa, or catch them in Africa, for 
half the sum they would have to pay the old States of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland for slaves ; and these States further 
urged that they would not come into the Union, unless the 
free States would consent to become kidnappers, and catch 
the fugitive slaves for them, when they ran into the free 
States. For as they had run the slaves down in Africa, and 
conferred so great a blessing on the country by bringing 
them over, therefore, to encourage the South in its laudable 
undertakings, the South insisted that the Korth, or free 
States, were to act the part of shepherds' dogs, to scare, 
catch and return their wandering flocks, when they came 
into the northern parts of the land. So these chivalrous 
States insisted on three points as " sine qua nons .-'" 1st. The 
African slave trade should be extended twenty years. 2d. 
That the free States should deliver up fugitive slaves ; and 
3d. That they should count, for the basis of Congressional 
representation, five of their slaves the same as three of our 
citizens. Before the adoption of the Constitution, a constant 
system of threatening was kept up, that unless all the 
humanity of the world was violated, they would not come 
into the confederacy ; and now the cry is, that unless we 



180 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

permit these same States to be considered honorable pirates, 
they will go out of the Union. It has always been held over 
our heads, in terrorem^ first, that they would not come in ; 
and now that they are in, that they would not stay in. And 
so, these chivalrous States have kept the North holding its 
breath, occasionally having conniption Jits^ lest the chival- 
rous human-flesh importers should become so enraged at our 
northern maxims, contained in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, that they would run out of the Union down some steep 
place^ and get cJtolced in the sea. 

THE GREAT POLITICAL DIVISION. 

This nation will, in a short time, be divided into two great 
parties which will swallow all others up, to wit, an anti- 
slavery one on one side, and a pro-slavery one on the other ; 
the first holding that all men are created equal, and that labor 
is honorable in all, and liberty the right of all ; while the 
latter or pro-slavery party will hold that one portion of the 
country is born to be slaves to the other ; and that labor is 
dishonorable, and a badge of meanness, and a kindred princi- 
ple with slavery. 

The liberty-loving, labor-honoring party ; the slave-holding, 
labor-despising party — to this complexion the people of this 
country must come at last. This wall be the grand division 
between the poHtical parties of this country. 

Ye men and women of Vermont, I know I need not ply 
you with arguments, to show which side of this important 
alternative you should espouse. 

You have always been on the side of humanity and justice 
m this great question of slavery. Everything here teachea 
you liberty ; these rocks and hills, these inexorable winters — 
all command you, as from above, to be industrious, laborious, 
frugal, and just. Your position and soil are perpetual gua- 
ranties that you will be industrious, that labor must be con. 



VERMONT SPEECH. 181 

sidered honorable ; where those things exist men will love 
liberty and hate slavery, or history is a lie and experience 
without instruction. 

EXPEDIENCY. 

Our fathers have left us one of the most instructive lessons 
ever given to mankind, showing the folly of expediency ; and, 
its wickedness when adopted by a nation, in opposition to 
the plain command of God, and the dictates of humanity, 
and the sober counsels of exact justice. It may not be un- 
profitable to glance at some of these governmental gales of 
expediency, into which our fathers and the present genera- 
tion of public men have been betrayed, under the notion that 
present expediency required us, as a nation, to use it to com- 
mit crimes, at which, as individuals, Ave should shudder. At 
the tune of the Declaration of Independence, the nation was 
like the great deep at the time of the flood, broken up from 
its foundations, and casting oif the allegiance that bound us 
to the British empire. Society was resolved in this republic 
into its original elements. 3,000,000 being the entire popu- 
lation ; 500,000, or one sixth of whom had been, and were 
held as slaves. 

All men must have seen by our Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and almost every state paper, all Congressional resolu- 
tions, manifestoes, petitions, appeals, and remonstrances con- 
nected with our struggle with the parent country, or the 
formation of States, by our State constitutions replete with 
the general topic of liberty, which was on the tongues of all, 
and in the hearts of many, that the times declared the gene- 
ral expectation, that if our independence was ever acknow- 
ledged by the British king and other powers of Europe, that 
liberty, universal liberty under the control of law, was to be 
the portion of every human being in the land. Consistency, 
decency, self-respect, justice, and the pleadings of our com- 



182 ALVAN STEWART. 

mon humanity all conspired to make us believe that the grave 
which we had dug for the manacles intended for our hands 
by England, should hold those which for 150 years had bound 
the slave. 

The war of the Revolution was over, the last gun fired 
aG:ainst a foreio:n foe, the States formed their constitutions, 
with bills of rights, attesting the doctrines of the Declaration 
of Independence, full of the most lofty professions in behalf 
of human rights. The confederation of the States, a mere 
rope of sand, lasted from 17V7 to 1789, twelve years. This 
was framed during the midnight of the Revolution : but out 
of regard to the slaveholders, nothing was said about the 
slave. Let us secure our own independence first. But in 
1774, the first Congress thought of the slave, so far as to 
forbid the old aforesaid slave trade after the 31st Decem- 
ber, 1775. This resolution was a dead letter. Nothing said 
about slavery after, during the Revolution ; all still ; till the 
Major General was to be appointed for the armies of the 
United States ; the North said, our Bunker Hill generals 
must stand aside to oblige the slave province of Virginia, 
and bring the South heartily into the measures for the Revo- 
lution. [Let no one think I intend disrespect to the memory 
of our immortal countryman by the statement of this fact ; 
far from it.] Again, when the Declaration of Independence 
was to be drawn, the honor must be conferred on a southern 
slaveholder, and its composition has, for its great merits, 
given a glorious immortality to its author. 

How small a matter it would have been for Congress, at 
some one of its sessions during the Revolution, to have 
declared the slaves free immediately, that they might be 
armed in defence of the country which liad made them free- 
men. History abounds in examples of this character, in 
ancient and modern times. Admitting the proposition for a 
moment, for the sake of the remark (but not as a truth), the 



VERMONT SPEECH. 183 

Congress of the Revolution might have declared them free 
mider the unhmited war power a nation possesses over the 
men and treasm-e of a nation which is fighting for its exist- 
ence. This principle must have been familiar to the old Con- 
gress of the Revolution. But supposing the former masters, 
after the Revolution, had petitioned Congress for relief or 
compensation, how easy to have set off the land now 
composing tAvo or three States. But our fathers let these 
golden opportunities pass, for fear of offending the South. 
Then came the formation of the Constitution of 1787, when 
twenty years were added to the African slave trade, to 
accommodate the South, and five slaves counted three whites, 
as the basis of Congressional representation. Then was the 
time to have insisted on the abolition of slavery, instead of 
yielding, and adding tenfold vigor to the insatiate hatred 
against the ebon race. What if three or four of those States 
had refused at first to enter the Union ? Did not two of 
them do it after all our coaxing, cringing, and miserable 
expediency ? They would have come in within three or four 
years after, and without slaves. 

The other States would have marched forward to grandeur 
and greatness, untrammelled by this awful system. And the 
very fact that we had parted on grounds so honorable to us, 
would have given to the world a most glorious exhibition 
of our devotedness to the great principles of justice and 
humanity. We should have had God and all good men 
on our side; yea, the approval of our own consciences. 
We should not have had a generation at the ^orth at this 
time one half of whom seem to be debauched in their notions 
of right and wrong, in relation to human liberty ; as much, I 
fear, as the besotted masters of the South. It was a corrupt 
agreement of the majority of a nation, with a minority, to crush 
humanity. It was the most guilty compact, for twenty years, 
against the guiltless poor of injured, unofi*ending Africa. 



184: ALVAN STEWART. 

Suppose "vre had stood up for God and our consciences 
while the slaveholder had separated and formed his slave 
oligarchy, without the aid of northern freemen to subdue 
the insurrection of the slave. The troops and navy of Great 
Britain kept the slave of the West Indies in subjection, and 
not the planters ; and so it has been in this confederacy, the 
military force of the North and the free States have restrained 
and held back the southern slave from his liberty. Again, 
the slaves, without the clause of surrender in the Constitu- 
tion, which was another crime of expediency committed 
against the law of God and our common humanity by the 
North, would have fled to us on the long line of Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, not to be pursued with 
southern vengeance, and met by northern law, northern jus- 
tices and constables. 

No, if we had withdrawn all connection with the South, 
all countenance, and held back the loan of our non-slavehold- 
ing character, as a cloak to cover up the rottenness of her 
most loathsome deformity, the South would long ere this 
have abohshed slavery herself, from the disgrace it would 
have been to her institutions. Suppose she had cut loose 
from the joint inheritance purchased by the valor of the 
Revolution because we would not participate in her crimes, 
she would then have stood such a monument of corruption 
and avarice, murder, meanness and feebleness, that there 
would not have been a nation in Europe so lost to self- 
respect, as to have entered into treaties with, or acknowledged 
the independence of a community whose foreign commerce 
was kidnapping, piracy, murder and blood ; whose domestic 
pursuits were nothing but lust, Avomen-whipping, robbery, 
and extortion, who paid their labors in kicks, curses, a»d 
lashes, who sold their own children, brothers, and sisters, by 
private contract, or public outcry. No ; the nations of the 
earth would have regarded them as " hostes liumani generis^'* 



VERMONT SPEECH. 185 

the enemies of the human race, as the outlawed bandits of 
the world, whom to have destroyed by been considered as 
the greatest of public virtues. 

But they have been preserved from the universal con- 
tempt and war of mankind by their confederacy with the free 
States. 

But whatever has gone to save the South from the execra- 
tion of the world, has been exactly so much deducted from 
northern virtue and character. Slavery has always been 
maintained at the expense of northern character, until Europe 
now regards the pro-slavery men of the Korth, and the slave- 
holders of the South, as on a par, and a stench in the nostrils 
of mankind. The admission of Missouri, Louisiana, Missis- 
sippi, Alabama, and Arkansas were all base bowings to 
expediency, at the expense of our poor sable brother. They 
were departures from, and violations of, the spirit of the 
Constitution. What have we gained by blackening the valley 
of the Mississippi with slavery, feebleness, shame, dishonor, 
sorrow, and an unspeakable amount of human misery? The 
country at the North and the South is every way the worse. 
Again, we bowed to the South imder the famous tariff com- 
promise, by which the Xorth sacrificed more than five hun- 
dred millions to the slaveholding South. They now desire 
a hard money government with which to overthrow northern 
credit. We lost from fifty to seventy-five milHons in the late 
revulsion in moneyed affairs, by the unnatural credit the slave- 
holders obtained at the North by pilfering from the future, 
and anticipating crops to be raised in 1839 and 1840, from 
the large masses of slaves and land held by individuals, 
Avhereas, if each man had had his one, two or three hundred 
acres and his own hands, and his sous, or one or two hired 
men, as in the North, nothing of the kind would have 
occurred. 



EXTKACTS FEOM A SPEECH, 

BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN 
CHURCH, 

At Philadelphia , in 1839. 
THE SLATE'S FALL. 

For a man to fall into slavery is to descend as far below 
the lowest point of Adam's flill, as Adam's fall carried him 
below the dome of Heaven. For a slave falls out of himself. 
A slave falls below the capacity of getting up or inquiring 
where he is, or how he came there, or how he may get 
away ; he falls so long through moral space that when he 
touches bottom, the laws of South Carolina and Louisiana 
say he is not to be regarded as a sentient being. Adam's fall 
left him at the point of knowing good and evil as he had 
practised them both, and he was a sentient being and could 
perceive it. The slave's fall is immense, as he goes so low 
he loses his manhood, and yet retains his shape ; he has left 
behind him all rational companionship, and is found in the 
same field and on the same level with the braying ass, the 
bleating sheep, and the grunting swine. He hears the 
neighing of the horse on one hand, and the lowing of the ox 
on the other. The man has become a brute. — He is stock, 
property, a thing — and can claim no interest in the legs with 
which he walks, the legs are another man's — he has no owner- 
ship of the eyes with which he sees, they belong to another 
man — the ears with which he hears, are another's — and if 
anybody should rob him of his eyes or ears or hands he uses, 
he has no interest in the question, as they belong to another, 

186 



GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPEECH. 187 

who, if the slave has lost his eyes or ears, or hands or legs, 
must sue for them and implead the offender, but the slave 
who was using them at the time they were bored out or 
exscinded, has no interest in the question. If this male chat- 
tel lives with a female chattel, and they should happen to 
have some little hkenesses of themselves, they would be 
called young chattels, who would belong to the owner of 
the old chattels, and might be sold by the pound. 

DUTY TO PAEEXTS. 

God says, " Children, obey your parents ;" if the slave 
parents were to order their children to go into the free States 
or Canada, Jamaica, Mexico or Barbadoes, and these 
children were to obey, that would soon pull out the founda- 
tion of our Kepublican form of government, if it rests on 
slavery, and let the beautiful superstructure of chattelship to 
the ground, with all the rising hopes of the New World. 

I hope that the seven commands I have pointed out as 
inconsistent with the institution of slavery, will not be 
regarded as the device of an army of fugitive slaves, lately 
escaped out of slavery, by even the upholders of slavery of 
the present day. I hope it will not be urged that the com- 
mand " children obey your parents," is not of celestial origin ; 
and that there has been an interpolation or expurgation, and 
that it should read, " children obey your masters that your 
lives may be long in the land which the Lord your God 
•shall give your masters." 

DUTY OF CLEEGYMEX. 

Ministers of the Gospel have no business, say some, to 
interfere with the political institutions of their country, nor 
common Christians, say others ; the men of this world cite 
them to such expressions as these "Render imto Caesar, 



188 ALVAN STEWART. 

the things that be Caesar's." " Fear God and honor the 
King." " Be subject to the powers that be." 

To be sure there is an immense difference between msur- 
rection and reformation. 

A general submission does not foreclose inquiry into prin- 
ciples, theories, or dogmas of government. Who is so pro- 
per as a good minister to ciy aloud and spare not, and show 
the people their sins, whether in organic law or statute 
cruelty ? The ministers of Christ should stand on the watch- 
towers of the nation, and point out that part of the constitu- 
tion and laws, which runs athwart the ordinances of Heaven, 
and publish the crime and probe the conscience. Ministers 
of all denominations, in a slave State, should join in a univer- 
sal outcry against the slave laws. For, otherwise, they 
cannot have a conscience void of offence ; and they become 
the greatest of sinners, recreant to the authority of their 
high commission, and prove themselves unworthy ambas- 
sadors of Christ. The silence of ministers in relation to 
the criminality of slave laws becomes unpardonable. That 
silence is a dagger to the soul of the slave ; that silence 
destroys his hopes and blasts his expectations ; that silence 
is moral cowardice, which may have lost the master and 
minister their souls. Again, this silence soon becomes 
acquiescence, which soon is apology, which is soon defence, 
which is soon vindication, which at last turns into a political 
truth maintained by the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and 
the minister becomes commentator, conscience keeper, ex- 
pounder of hard sayings, until the Bible lies, at last, in the 
southern country, at the bottom of slavery, and the text-book 
of authority for its support. 

It is a libel upon the Deity to suppose that it is a part of 
his system of Divine government that one man should make 
liis fellow-man his hrute. To say, that God, who made of 
one blood all nations of men under heaven, and commanded 



GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPEECH. 189 

man to love his neighbor as himself, and that we should do 
unto others as we would that others should do unto us : 
should tolerate American slavery, with all its odious defor- 
mities, is a flight, not up, but down, below the dark founda- 
tions of hell, which is paved with Slaveholding Divinity — 
yea, tracts full of such theology would make Lucifer light his 
brimstone lamp to read them — and he would distribute them 
to each ruined maniac spirit, chained in his eternal cell, 
throughout his dark dominions, whose terrific yell of fiendish 
delight would make the pit, box and galleries of all perdition 
tremble Avith an improved sensation. 

JUDICIAL MURDER. 

The unoffending fugitive, who is outlawed by a southern 
county court proceeding, if he does not return to his 
master by a day certain, (and as a matter of course he 
knows nothing of this legal ilirce, of which he is never 
notified), he becomes as a ''''caput lupinum^'' a wolfs head, 
any man may shoot him down. As though the natural 
ferocity was not enough in a slave holding country, I -have 
seen in the last two years not less than six cases, in which 
the master offered a reward of from $20 to $100 to any one 
who would hunt and shoot down his outlawed slave and 
bring him the head of the slave, so that he might identify 
him. What shall be said of the editor or the printer who 
could prostitute the art of jDrinting, and who, for two dollars, 
the price of printing such a notice, could become accessory 
before the fact, to a murder ? What can we think of a com- 
munity which would patronize such papers, or of the state of 
religion and morals, where the law declared murder lawful, 
as in these cases ; or of the judges at the county court who 
could prepare a general commission authorizing the whole 
community to spring upon and murder the most innocent 
and defenceless man in the world, whose only crime is, that 



190 ALVAN STEWART. 

he thinks he has a better right to the use of his legs and 
hands than any mortal on earth. Fellow-traveller to eter- 
nity — fellow-Christian, this is a part of the judicial system, 
siij^posed necessary to thunder forth from Slavery's Vatican 
its decrees against the man who is unwilling to be beaten, 
whipped and starved as a slave ; but prefers his liberty. 

I am prepared to say there is not such a God-contemning, 
heaven and earth-insulting statute to be found out of the 
southern States, in the four quarters of the civiUzed or un- 
civilized world. 

The various modes of murder of the fugitive slave, judicial 
or otherwise, have no parallel in the annals of the nineteenth 
century ; and where we boast over the ancients of our steam, 
which has made the ends of the world neighbors, despising 
currents, laughing at tides, and disobeying the winds ; which 
carries, at horse-race speed, a brigade of men across the land 
on a railroad, by the partnership power of a cord of wood 
and a hogshead of water, with all the other wonderful things, 
still this moral blot is wider, and throws into the shade more 
true greatness, than all the discoveries of the world could or 
can boast. 

These bloody laws carry us back to barbarism — ah ! barbar- 
ism itself would be so ashamed of such laws, that it would 
open to the right and left, and beg these slave States to pass 
through their ranks without claiming any authority or prece- 
dent for these refined acts of legislative and judicial murder 
from any act of barbarism, ancient or modern. 

SLAVEHOLDIXG CATECHISM. 

Let our catechism be altered so as to read " Man's chief 
end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever, except when he 
is a slave, then his chief end is to obey and honor his master, 
and avoid all the misery he can, and dodge as many of his 
master''s bloics as will be safe,'''* 



GENEEAL ASSEMBLY SPEECH. 191 



RELIGION AND LEGISLATION. 

The legislation of a nation will rise just as high on any 
question, as the majority of the rehgionists of that nation 
see fit to put it. If the professors of religion of this country, 
or a majority of the same, had declared slavery as it is, a sin 
against God, and a crime against man ; that the slaveholder 
was to be ranked with the highest criminal ; Congress would, 
under its power to regulate commerce between the States, 
have said that man could not be an article of commerce, and 
that he could not be bought and sold, and whoever did sell 
or use a man as an article of property or merchandise should 
be punished with death, or in the State Prison for life ; 
slavery would have been brought to an end notwithstanding 
the power of State institutions, as the Constitution of the 
United States, and the laws made under it, are paramount to 
the constitution of the States, or their legislation under them. 
Are not the leading denominations, the Methodist, Baptist, 
Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Congregationahsts (the last 
two considered as one) equal to two millions of members, 
who would influence, directly, at least eight millions more, to 
which add the two millions of professors, making ten millions 
of the Repubhc : a large majority of the whole are thus brought 
under a salutary restraint, and a correct moral opinion. Look 
at the principle I seek to establish. What do the clergy, and 
professors of religion say, in relation to murder, robbery, 
stealing, false swearing, fraud, swindling ? The good man, in 
the pulpit or out, utters the condemnation of these crimes, 
and legislation follows and prescribes. 

The clergy all speak against the desecration of the Sabbath 
day, and profane swearing ; legislation followed to pass penal 
acts to punish those offences. 

DueUing in all the northern States has been the frequent 
theme of pulpit remarks and condemnation ; laws of a high 



192 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

and severe character now do honor to the northern statute 
book ; and the offence is now unknown. The clergy and 
rehgious men thundered their denunciations against lotteries ; 
and legislation came and obeyed the public will, and lotteries 
are unknown in the North. 

Legislation rises and goes forward in all countries, what- 
ever the form of religion ; whether Roman Catholic, Moham- 
medan, Hindostanee, Pagan, Jew, or Christian, exactly as 
high on all questions of morality, prejudice, superstition or 
true Christianity, as the pubUc sentiment of the general reli- 
gion of the country will carry it. 

This being an admitted truth, what a tremendous responsi- 
bility rests on the majority of the professors of religion in this 
country ? Slavery would long since have ceased to have cov- 
ered this land with misery, wretchedness, crime and heathen- 
ism, had the Christian public bodies and individuals expressed 
their detestation of the crime, and its criminals. That black 
cloud surcharged with artillery of the upper world, Avould not 
have been ready to descend on this doomed land ; it would 
have passed away before the Christian rebuke of this nation ; 
but no, the poor slave has not had the Christian's pity, nor his 
enemies the Christian's censure. Had Christians performed 
their duty, and expressed their abhorrence of slavery in their 
united and individual capacity, we should not have seen our 
young and noble Constitution disgraced by a shameful viola- 
tion of the important right of petition, for three successive 
winters. Nor should we have witnessed official perjury in 
members of Congress, who were guilty in the fice of their 
recorded oaths, in heaven and on earth, by meeting the peti- 
tioner at the portal of his country's audience chamber, and 
denying him admission and shutting that door in his face, by 
the command of the dark spirit of slavery. 

Kor should Ave have seen eight new slave States admitted 
to the privileges of this confederacy, nor should we have seen 



GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPEECH. 193 

500,000 slaves increase to three millions, nnclieckecl, nor should 
we have seen Presidential candidates, on their prostrate knees, 
licking up the saliva of the monster, and see and hear the 
candidates saying to the monster, " your froth, your whips, 
tears, blood, murder, are the beauties and sweets of civilized 
life." You would not have seen the priest of the country 
bowing before this horrid boaconstrictor, praising the beauty 
of his folds, the grandeur of his coils, and the richness of his 
spots ; and as if that was not enough, tell him that he is of Bible 
origin, and that he is a lineal descendant of the famous ana- 
conda who held the dialogue with Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

THE slave's condition HERE AND IIEEEAFTEE. 

We act for him, who is the most helpless creature in the 
universe of God, the most despised, the most scorned — the 
slave. This is the poor prisoner ; he is sick, he is naked, he is 
hungry, he is in prison ; let ns feed him, let us clothe him, let 
us visit him ; and we are promised, that, in so doing, we do 
thereby visit, clothe, and feed the Saviour of the world, whose 
representative the slave is, sanctified by the Holy Ghost. 
Who are so much to be loved and pitied, as one of those fol- 
lowers of the great Redeemer, who by slavery has suffered 
the loss of all things — of property, of wife, of children, not 
dead, yet torn from him, himself a slave, subject to mockings 
and scourgings, who is uniDitied and unrequited by the being 
for whom he toils the live-long day ; nay, he is cursed, abused, 
whipped — called hard names, eats the- mouldy crust under the 
Vv'all, sleeps on the straw ; his nnrested limbs are called to 
renew their painful work before the glories of the rising sun 
have quenched the light of the last star, and through the day 
he broils in a sultry sun till the beaming stars of heaven burst 
through the mantle of evening, and so da}^ follows day to 
the last of his existence. Child of sorrow, child of want, des- 
titute of all things esteemed, but rich in a celestial expectancy, 

9 



19-i AT.VAN STEWART. 

Standing on the lowest stair of human existence, yet the 
owner of a heavenly mansion, fiiinislied by a Savionr's hive ; 
tliough a ])risoner liere, he is a freed man of the uj^per worUl ; 
tliough Covered with stripes here, he lias a garment i»ure an<] 
white, washed hi the Saviour's blood ; though he mourns and 
weeps here, he shall have a new song ]>ut in his mouth there ; 
though he is faint and hungry here, he will soon be fed on 
the nectar of immortality ; though imin-isoned here, he will 
Boon range the illimitable paradise of (iod ; though sick here, 
he will soon revel in eternal hcaltli ; though friendless an<l 
unbelovcil hm', he will si.on join tli:it iiinunicrable army of 
friends, who will love him with everlasting love; though a 
})owerless slave here, he will soon be a jnince crowned with 
glory ati'l iiiiinortality. 

Shall we despite ihe^n of the King (-f (Jlory, in exile, 
Roon to be brought honi^vith the shouts <.f the re<leemed V 
No, God forbi.l. Let us do all in our j.ower to lift up our 
brother from the dark and noisome dungeon, into the sun- 
light of e(piality, liberty, religion and law. 



SPEECH, EEYIEAVIXa THAT OF ME. CLAY, 

ox PRESEXTIXG A PETITIOX TO COXGRESS, 

FliOM THE DISTEICT OF COLUMBIA, 1839. 

The voice of tlie slaveholder can be heard for tlie liour 
together, without interruption, or those liyena cries of 
" Order, Order !" so often uttered by the meanness of des- 
potism, to drown the cry of throttled humanity. How often 
has liberty tried to speak, when she has been howled down ? 
As liberty shrieked in Congress, the fist of the slaveholder 
was thrust into her mouth. I say shrieked^ for liberty has 
never been allowed to articulate a sentence, lest the secrets 
of the i)rison-house and the crime of the ravisher should be 
pubHshed to an avenging world. Only broken sentences, 
cries of smothered murder, crying " ho ! help !" are all Avhich 
has yet escaped, in snatches, in whispers and screams, from 
that windy Ijastile, an American Congress, where liberty is 
brought to the table or block and beheaded fifty times in a 
mornhig, to show the blasphemous contempt the representa- 
tives of the American people have for their Constitution and 
Declaration of Independence. 

Yes, the Congress of the United States, the most astonish- 
ing absurdity, the unrivalled despiser of the institutions which 
gave it existence. A temple dedicated to the profanation of 
every principle in practice, which the nation jjrofesscs to 
adore, in the abstract. 

Liberty in the abstract is slavery in the concrete. American 
constitutional justice and liberty on parchment, mean atheism 
and despotism when two and a half millions of the people ask 

195 



196 ALVAN STEWAET. 

for the benefit of tlie pretension. They extend their hands to 
seize those beautiful apples, there is an awful yell made in 
their ears, and, in bewildered consternation, the apples which 
they forced toward their mouths have become ashes and 
poison. It is a castle haunted by the genius of deception, 
who pretends to have married the goddess of liberty, who 
receives the adoration of all, except the two and a half mil- 
lions of slaves who carry and hold uj) her long tram when she 
comes down into her temple to be worshipped. 

But wh*ii Mr. Clay, the candidate for Presidential honors, 
wishes to present a petition against the poor slaves of the 
District of Columbia, all is silence — the elite, the national 
beauty, the glory of the metropolitan city, yea, the Senate is 
attent, and the House of Ilej)resentatives leave their hall to 
witness the labors of the American Cicero, standing ap to 
defend and perpetuate the greatest crime man ever committed 
against God, and the greatest crime man ever committed 
against man. 

Behold the inhuman monsters of the District of Columbia ! 
They prepare a petition signed by a few slaveholders, wdio 
live on the robbery of the helpless — yea, eat, drink and wear 
the proceeds of unpaid and whip-extorted labor ; they have 
the unparalleled impudence to place their names on the roll 
of imperishable infamy, and petition the nation — for what ? 
Ah ! that they may live by plunder, robbery, by enslaving 
and kidnapping their fellow-citizens through all coming time ; 
and when this audacious paper is prepared, Avhy do they not 
hunt the most distinguished hrigand ov pirate on the globe, 
and send him to the Senate, so that it may be presented by a 
senator whose notions of right and wi-x)ng run contraband to 
the civiUzed world ? 

But whom do these metropoUtan desperadoes select ? 
Henry Clay, the man whom they supposed, with his deep- 
toned, organ voice, honeyed periods and the long-reaching 



ANSWEK TO clay's SPEECH. 197 

sweep of oratorical sentences, might prepare this wretched 
dose, and persuade the nation to take it down, however awry- 
its grimaces might be in swallowing, and leave the effect to 
time, when it was fairly under way on a journey through the 
system. This was something humbling for this great disciple 
of liberty, as he pretends in his speech to be, for he appeals 
to the Searcher of all hearts for what he says as true, when he 
asserts that every pulsation of his heart beats high for liberty, 
and that he was no friend to slavery. How cruel to force 
such a man into the Straits of Thermopylae ! 

In undertaking this massacre, this murder of what he 
loved — " liberty " — ye little souls, judge what it cost this 
great lover of liberty to have made a speech for perpetual, 
yea, everlasting slavery, slavery to-day, to-morrow and for- 
ever, with that burning love of liberty which consumed his 
very vitals from the intensity of its heat and the fervor of its 
flame, and baked his clay till it melted. Xo ordinary indi- 
vidual could be selected for this task. If I am not much 
mistaken, this petition was gotten up at the instance of the 
slaveholding orator, to furnish the gentleman an opportunity 
to make a speech, the popularity of which should settle, in 
his own estimation, the question of his being the next Presi- 
dent ; so that, in the fortieth year of the nineteenth century, 
a speech is made expressly by a candidate for the Presidency 
of this country, in which the great leading thought is to 
make the most outrageous slavery — American slavery — 
perpetual, as long as the sun and moon shall endure, as long 
as this earth shall make its annual journey through the 
ecliptic around the sun, continuing to double every twenty 
years, increasing at the rate of live per cent, per annum, 
Tvhich is Mr. Clay's estimate, and will amount to 5 milhons 
in 20 years ; in 40 years to 10 millions ; 60 years to 20 
milhons; 80 years to 40 millions, and 100 years to eighty 
millions — outnumbering every slave, serf and boor in the 



198 ALVAN STEWART. 

civilized or savage world. Look at the number in 1 20 years — • 
160 millions ; in 140 years, 320 millions ; in 160 years, at the 
same rate, 620 millions — outnnmbering the inhabitants of 
China — yea, of Asia and Europe united ; and, in the opinion 
of many, equalling in number the j)resent inhabitants of this 
planet. 

Look at 180 years, you see 1,240 millions of slaves if the 
whole earth could feed them, and if each slave of this vast 
number was to endure only an average amount of misery and 
injustice inflicted on the slaves of this generation, surely the 
everlasting hell itself would cry out that its horrors were out- 
done by a slave-ruined world. 

This is the institution sought to be pressed uf)on the rising 
destiny of the Ncav World, and for so urging it upon our 
perpetual acceptance, and fostering, he asks the office of Presi- 
dent. Let us examine this petition, as analyzed by the pacifi- 
cator. 

It is signed by the principal men in the city of Washington, 
the mayor and several hundred citizens. Many of those per- 
sons conscientiously opposed to slavery^ who are grieved and 
astonished out of measure that misguided individuals should 
press on the consideration of Congress, the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia, and who state, that when 
they wish it, they, of the District, icill let Congress Jcnow. 
They say it is a question purely municipal, between the Dis- 
trict and their own legislature. Congress. 

The slaveholder can embark all the respectability of piracy 
in his fivor. The mayor, and all officials stand by him. 
Secondly, those conscientiously opposed to slavery. IIow 
many eternities it would take to abolish slavery, did it de- 
pend on these conscientious opposers, who have petitioned 
for its continuance, till the sun shall grow dim in years, till 
the centre of gravity yield up his old dominion ! 

These conscientious men, love liberty so intensely that they 



199 

petition for slavery ; their souls burn for that high behest of 
all men, liberty, and to gratify that darUng wish, they petition 
the highest legislative tribunal of their country that men and 
women may become things ; that they may be marked hke 
horses, asses and oxen, for nothing, by their owners, and 
that they may be scourged, their bodies cut into haggard 
scars ; that husband and wife, for a few pieces of gold, may 
be parted to see each other no more, and if either endeavors to 
run away and see the other, the husband the wife, the wife the 
husband, the child the parent, or the parent the child, that the 
bloodhound may pursue and overtake and tear their flesh from 
their quivering limbs, and if the slave-hunter pursues, and the 
fugitive flees, most deliberately may the death-deahng rifle 
be raised and brought to a level, sure aim taken by 2^, fiendish 
squint^ the report is heard, and a w^ild scream of death is the 
finale, and the slave becomes ii freeman of the unseen ii^orld. 
" Where is my father, where is my mother ?" inquire their 
httle children, as the slave-hunters return from their excursion 
of blood and murder. Can they answer this question ? If 
they can, truly these are the only persons who can, in 
the three kingdoms of Heaven, Earth and Hell. These 
men " conscientiously opposed to slavery," and yet petition 
for the perpetuity of a system, which makes us the scorn of 
man ! This is the conscientious opposition that tigers have 
for kids, wolves for lambs, hyenas for blood. Such solemn 
duplicity on the high jDlaces of the earth ; such a mixture of 
pretensions of lofty humanity, stooping to the perpetuity of 
all that is horrible in time or punishable in eternity. The 
assurance of the bold, the imiDudent and successful impostors, 
wdiich has been able with the horrid accents of pretended 
devotion to liberty, republican law, and veneration for the 
sanctity of our religion, to blot out all distinction between 
right and wrong, upset the ten commandments, make the 
Scriptures a cunningly devised fable, humanity a by-word, 



200 ALVAN STEWART. 

the Declaration of Independence an absurdity, the Constitu- 
tion a rope of sand, the laws a nose of wax, the English 
language a liar, the name of an American a reproach. The 
American has not his true name as yet ; but the world are 
preparing to christen him and give him a cognomen, which 
will make him hang his head with shame, and at best he will 
enjoy but a contraband and furtive reception into respectable 
circles of European society. 

But we are informed that the reason why many of those 
who are " conscientiously opposed to slavery," signed the 
l^etition for perpetual slavery m the District, and in hostility 
to its abolition is, *' because they justly respect the rights of 
those who own this description of property;" such men must 
be very conscieiitioics ; why not respect the rights of the 
slaves ? Why is this conscientiousness all for the master^ 
who has purloined the earnings of the slaves through several 
generations for 200 years ? 

Another reason why these conscientious men petition is, 
that those who have jDCtitioned for the abolition of slavery 
in the District of Columbia live out of the District^ and 
therefore have no business to interfere with it ! Repeal the 
slave laws enacted by the Congressmen of Vermont, New 
York, Xew Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1800 and 1801. 
Abolitionists simply ask Congress to repeal its own laws 
which it has made ; and was it ever known that a legislature 
might "not repeal its own laws ? Let Vermont and Massa- 
chusetts stand by their representatives, where they did before 
they helped to enact the slave laAvs of the District, and no 
more is required. Slavery Avill then be dead in the District. 
Vermont and Massachusetts by their members of Congress 
enacted slavery into a legal system in the District of Colum- 
bia. The moment the jurisdiction of the territory was ceded 
by Virginia and Maryland to the United States and accepted 
by the Union as the seat of government, eo iiistanti in point 



201 

of law, the slave system and all of the laws of those two 
States in the District were annihilated. Now from this point 
we start ; if Congress had no power to create the relation of 
slave and master, then, for near forty years, the colored man 
has been deprived of his liberty by unconstitutional laws. If the 
law was constitutional, the States, by whose means, through 
their representatives, this most malignant system was intro- 
duced, owe it to the slaves, whether the slaveowners were 
willing or unwilling to repeal the system immediately and 
make all the atonement in their power to helpless innocence. 
One cannot but be astonished at the slaveholding effrontery 
in always refusing to regard the slaves as any part or parcel 
of the inhabitants of the Territory, The nation is responsi- 
ble for the system of slavery in that District ; therefore, 
" those conscientiously opposed to slavery," who petition for 
its everlasting continuance in the District give as another 
reason for wishing to perpetuate slavery against their con- 
science, their " deep conviction that a continued agitation by 
those who have no right to interfere with it has an injurious 
influence on the community, and upon the well-being and 
happiness of those held in subjection." Here are three evils 
or reasons which the slaveholder, " conscientiously opposed 
to slavery," gives, for petitioning for the endless continuance 
of slavery in the District. 

1st. No right to interfere by those who organized the 
system and put the yoke on the neck of these guiltless poor. 
You created the system, but have no business to uncreate. 
You legislated the system of iniquity into existence ; but it 
Avoul^ be interference to legislate it out. 

Second reason given by these slaveholders who are " con- 
scientiously opposed to slavery," why it should endure for- 
ever in the District, is, that the agitation of the question of 
abohtion " has an injurious influence on the community." 

K it has an injurious efiect now, when there are say, " but 

9* 



202 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

7,000 slaves in that commuiiity, it would be twice as injuri- 
ous, arithmetically speaking, twenty years hence, when the 
slaves shall be 14,000 in number, and the whites proportion- 
ally increased. It therefore follows that the injury to the 
community is at the minimum, or ounce notch at the hm\ and 
any delay to abolish slavery will only increase this difficulty- 
with increasing number, so the weight would be forever slid- 
ing back into Xh^x^ound notches^ and so on to the end of the 
bar, the longer emancipation is delayed. For it is often 
said that the reason slavery Avas abolished in the northern 
States, was because of the paucity of the slaves. The more 
slaves there are, the greater is the number of whites and 
blacks who must have their social relations broken up and 
changed. The difficulty of emancipation increases in the 
ratio of numbers, whether emancipation takes place with or 
Avithout compensation. If without compensation, then the 
loss will be less to individuals, the smaller the number of 
slaves ; if compensation is adopted, the difficulty increases 
with every hour of delay ; for if the laborious part of the 
community are to maintain themselves and to pay a sum, 
which, put at interest, will maintain the masters, as well as 
they now are, the fewer of those masters, and the fewer slaves 
owned by those masters, the less the sum will be to pay. 
Whether expulsion, colonization, separation or manumission on 
the soil, there is one proposition on Avhich the ultra-slaveholder 
and Abolitionist and men of all intermediate shades of opinion 
must concur, to wit, if slavery is not to be eternal, then the 
best for the slaveholder, the slave and the remainder of the 
community, is, that abolition should take place before* the 
number of slaves shall have increased. 

The third reason urged by the slaveholder " conscientiously 
opposed to slavery " in the District of Columbia^ is that the 
agitation of the question of slavery by the petitions of the 
freemen of New England, Ohio, and New York, in praying 



ANSWER TO CLAY S SPEKCH. 203 

for its abolition, " will have an injurious effect upon the 
loell being and happiness of those held in subjection " by 
slavery. 

The master, conscientiously opposed to slavery, thus testi- 
fies his ardent love fbr liberty : 

Do the masters fear that, in consequence of the agitation 
of this question by the constitutional mode of petition, they 
shall be obliged to add to the severity of strij^es, hunger, 
nakedness, or deprive the man of his wife oftener ; separate 
the mother from the children for a longer time ; for they 
must refer to corporeal ills of this description ; because, in 
relation to the immortal mind, slavery has done its worst, no 
greater injury can be done to the well being of the undying 
mind, denied all access to books, all knowledge of divine or 
moral truths, penalties on i^enalties for teaching the child who 
is a slave to read. These things have no parallel in the annals of 
brutality ; for the first offence, teacher and taught are to be 
whipped thirty-nine lashes on the naked back, if both are 
slaves ; for the second oflx?nce, one hundred lashes ; and for 
the third, death. 

Slaves, do you complain that your " happiness and well- 
being," are mjured by petitions presented for your redemp- 
tion ? " No, we have no happiness and well-being to be 
injured — and were every petition presented in our behalf a 
blow laid on with violence, we would pray their numbers to 
be increased — yes, we beseech you, our friends, by the rich 
boon of liberty, for which we pant and pray, never to fiiint or 
grow weary in well-doing ; to you our eyes are turned, living 
and dying ; for our sake, for our children's sake, for unborn 
generations' sake, do not cease, day and night, to bombard 
this dreadful bastile. We are more than prisoners, we are 
glaves— we are at the bottom of the wheel and can find no 
lower depth." 

Or, does the District petition presented by the senator, mean, 



204 ALVAN STEWA.RT. 

that the master vents his spleen, which boils up from the bot- 
tom of his atra-bihous soul, on the poor slave, because he hates 
the petitioning Abolitionist, whom he supposes is in sympathy 
with the miserable and undone slave. 

Mr. Clay says that he has diifered in opinion w^ith the 
course of the House of Representatives in relation to the 
reception of Abohtion petitions. While the House refuse to 
read, print, refer, consider and report thereon, he, Mr. Clay, 
would do all always by sound argument, coming a little 
more circuitously to the prompt conclusion of the House — the 
entire and absolute rejection of the petition ; but this w^as to 
be done by an argumentative appeal to the good sense of the 
commimity. This is Mr. Clay's medicine for the plague of 
slavery. Let us see for a moment how this thing might be 
made to appear if the course pointed out by the trans-montane 
orator had been adopted. It is said tliat fighting is a busi- 
ness that two men can play at. The amount of Mr. Clay's 
proposition is that an argumentative appeal made to the good 
sense of the people of the United States would entirely satisfy 
them that slavery was a good institution, as though the rea- 
son, that some are dissatisfied wdth that system at present is 
their ignorance of its excellence, and it only requires to be 
explained to be admired, only portrayed to be embraced, to 
be dressed in its true colors, and pliilanthroi:>y will run to salute 
it, humanity will pillow it on its bosom, while justice will 
rock it to quietness, when querulous republicanism herself — 
fair daughter of the Revolution — will hold it up to an admir- 
ing world, as her darling, her first born, the armament of the 
nation in time of peace, her glory and sure defence in time of 
war. In this successful argument addressed to the American 
people, Christianity herself must be called to the stand as a 
witness, w^hile she says " God made of one blood all nations." 
" Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you," 
" Love thy neighbor as thyself," " Break every yoke, let the 



a:nsweii to clay's speech. 205 

oppressed go free,'' " He who stealeth a man let liim be put 
to death ;" and hi Babylon was found, " cinnamon, and odors, 
and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and line 
flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and cha- 
riots, and slaves, and souls of men." She further says, that, 
in the synod of Georgia and South Carolina, as my ministers 
of the Presbyterian Synod certify, there are 100,000 persons 
who never heard of Jesus Christ. To be sure, it is by south- 
ern law, a crime, to be punished with stripes, for slaves to 
be found reading the Saviour's sermon on the mount, or for 
one to be found teaching another to read the Lord's prayer 
or ten commandments, punishable, for the third offence, in 
some of the States, with death ; to be sure, God says of the 
marriage relation, " what God hath joined together let no man 
put asunder ;'' and children are commanded to obey their 
parents; slaveholders sell wives from their husbands, and 
make children obey masters and not parents. To be sure 
slaveholders murder their slaves, when they attempt to run 
away and they cannot stop them without ; to be sure, they, 
the masters, bid up bounties to be given those who will shoot 
dead outlawed slaves, who are hiding themselves in the wil- 
derness from the terrors of their masters, half starved ; to be 
sure, there is not one schoolhouse nor three churches in all 
the South for the three millions of slaves ; to be sure, no man 
is permitted to preach to slaves without making the obedi- 
ence of slaves to masters sls a stepping-stone to immortal life, 
disobedience, eternal death ; the Alpha and Omega of a 
slave's theology is to obey their masters in all things, right 
or wrong. 

, To be sure, labor is despised at the South and considered 
degrading and ignoble, except in the slave. To be sure, there 
are more duels and assassinations among the aristocratic 
whites than there are days in the year, which are the gentle- 
manly employments of southern citizens, and are the standing 



206 ALVAN 5TEWAET. 

schools kept to teach men pohteness and educate men to a 
lofty bearing. To be sure, there are 500,000 slaves whose 
masters are their fathers, and brothers, and sisters, being 
one-half, three-fourths, six-sevenths and nine-tenths white ; 
and in all cases of this sort, slavery wears its most attractive 
and winning form — for if a father, or brother, or sister, has 
not a right to whip, beat, shoot, murder and sell his own 
child, his own brother, his own sister, there is no object in 
having children^ brothers or sisters ; this is one of the most 
interesting mventions made in this age of fruitful discovery. 
The father is, in the language of Horace, " faber ejus for- 
tunge." If the father, at the North, of ten children, could 
sell them as they grew up for $1000 each, it is easily per- 
ceived he might wallow in wealth, instead of dragging life 
out in " chill penury." Again, it is eminently calculated to 
make men obey one of the oldest commands, to wit, multiply 
and replenish the earth. Christianity herself feels bound to 
testify in behalf of slavery, that this command is obeyed with 
a singular faithfiilness and devotion. The money for Avhich 
a parent may sell his son or daughter, especially where the 
African tinge has disappeared, and a larger proportion of the 
father comes out in the progeny, will amount sometimes to 
$2,000 or $3,000, and furnish money for a summer excursion 
for the father at the North, and will allow him to pass several 
times up and down the North River, and make him gape with 
admiration at the everlasting Pahsadoes, and inquire the 
altitude of the lofty peaks of our cloud-propping Appalachians, 
and then inquire into an analysis of Saratoga waters, and 
promenade the porticos of the eating and sleeping palaces of 
the land, walk abroad and listen to the sound of the sea a» 
it seems to murmur in the tops of the lofty pines, then a tour 
through Lake George, Ticondcroga, Crown Point, Lake 
Champlain, St. Johns, Montreal and Quebec— the military 
classic region — and then return by the Niagara Falls, and so 



ANSWER TO clay's SPEECH. 207 

down to Xew York, in time to attend the Board of Commis- 
sioners of Foreign Missions, and to display liis generosity in 
giving $50 of the remnant of the purchase money of his 
daughter, to carry the Gospel to the benighted Georgians 
beyond the Black Sea, who are so barbarous and so unen- 
lightened, as to sell their beautiful daughters to be immured 
in the seraglios of the nobles of Constantinople, or the harem 
of the Grand Seignior. Illustrious benefactor of Christianity ! 
Let no man say it is the duty of the Board of Missions ever 
to inquire whether the money given them was acquired by 
the cvmning of the gambler, or the arts of the courtesan ; by 
the success of the highwayman, or by the slaveholder selling 
his daughter into slavery. 

What can be more admired in this age of the 19th century 
than to see a brother sailing over the ocean and dashino- 
through all the fashionable rounds of dissipation in London, 
Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and Rome, maintained the 
whole tour by the avails of a poor broken-hearted sister, who 
was sold before commencing the grand expedition, for 85,000, 
to a gentleman in Kew Orleans ? 

But the young traveller w\anted money ; she was the most 
valuable piece of stock he owned. He, however, gave £20 
at the anniversary in London, after hearing "an eloquent 
speech, to aid the Magdalen's Society. 

A sister sells a brother to carry the hod for the bricklayer 
to the fourth story of the house, and languish and die imder 
the visitation of the lash, to supply her with laces, wedding 
rings and ornamental dresses for the bridal day, when she 
shall wed a man who has sold his sister for money to buy a 
chariot and four, in which the bride and bridegroom may roll 
their honeymoon away, in going from watering-place to 
watering-spring, or in search of mountain air, or sea beach 
side by moonlight, where they may listen to the ocean's 



208 ALVAN STEWART. 

everlasting song, and see the moonbeams dance upon the 
waves, and enjoy the delicious reverie in nature's witchery, 
and read the last novel, as they course along day by day, and 
enjoy the reviving power of ether and musk when her sympa- 
thies overcome the bride in listening to the well-depicted 
woes of romance and suffering of bygone days of chivalry. 
Look at the interestmg pair ; you may overhear them speak- 
ing, with most sovereign contempt, of those miserable northern 
families who are interfering with our pecuUar institutions. 
Says the bridegroom to the bride, " Those fanatical monsters 
at the North would fain have prevented me in selling my 
sister for this chariot and four, so well caparisoned, in which 
we ride." " Yes," says the bride, " these same meddUng 
monster fanatics would, if they could have had their wish, 
have prevented me from selling my brother into slavery, by 
the avails of whose sale I am made so charmingly interesting 
to you, my spouse, and am now flashing in diamond rings, 
necklace and splendid tiara ! Monsters ! I believe they will 
dissolve our Union, if they do not cease this officious inter- 
meddling ! What an advantage we have, my dear," said the 
thoughtful bride, " in having our lives cast in pleasant places ; 
for if we had been born at the Korth, you and I would have 
been poor, and could not sell our brothers and sisters. Only 
see," continued she, " the good sense of our ancestors and 
their legislators, whereby the whole of the family is not 
obliged to be poor, but certain brothers and sisters are 
authorized to sell the rest of their sisters and brethren into 
slavery, and become opulent and grand ; whereas, at the 
Korth all are free and all are poor ! With our institution of 
slavery, and the power of one branch of the family to sell the 
rest, no family is in danger of losing its caste and elevated 
position in society, and it enables us to do something for 
benevolent objects, in carrying religion to the benighted 



ft 



209 

pagans of the old world, who have not enjoyed the high 
privileges we possess, in this land, where ' all men are created 
free and equal.' " 

Suj^pose the above dispassionate appeal should be sent 
forth to the nation, by the committee to be appointed on 
slavery, according to Mr. Clay's project, revealing some of 
the choice beauties connected with the institution of slavery ; 
is it not believed that the mighty spirit that rides and directs 
this moral storm, would forever abandon the pursuit of 
liberty for the American slave ? 

But suppose a committee appointed, as Mr. Clay suggests, 
clothed with a general power to pry into all the secrets of 
this dreadful prison-house, and armed with the usual right of 
committees of this character, to send for persons and papers. 

Suppose this committee had made uj) their mind to glean 
facts from the following and distinct sources ; what would 
the facts warrant as their general conclusion? 

1st. Let the committee send for the statutes of the thirteen 
slave States, and have extracts made from the legislation of 
each State, showing the servile law, or law of slavery. 

The 1st point. All the statutes would show a slave to be a 
thing, a mere chattel, and that he ranks with horses and hogs, 
and he and his increase is his master's. 2d. That he or she 
never can be a witness against a white man for the greatest 
"wi'ong done him or her. 3d. The greatest Aiolence done to 
their bodies or limbs is a matter for which they can seek no 
redress. The master has all that is got. 4th. The courts of 
civil and criminal justice are never opened to them as against 
a white man, any more than courts are open for goats and 
hogs to come and prosecute. 5th. For the reason they 
themselves have no rights for which to prosecute. 6th. A 
slave may be separated from his wife— his children may be 
taken from their parents. Tth. It is a great crime by the law 
for a slave to teach or be taught. 8th. Inmost of the States, 



210 ALVAN STEWAET. 

slaves cannot meet for worship unless more whites are present 
than slaves. 9th. A peck of corn, costmg 12^ cents, is the 
amount of sustenance the law requires the master to give the 
slave per week. No man could board a dog at the North for a 
less sum, per week. 10th. In some States, twenty, some forty, 
and others seventy-eight, crimes are punishable with death 
in the slave. 11th. It is death in many States for a slave to 
raise his or her hand against a white person, no matter how 
great the provocation or necessity. 12th. The slave, in cases 
that take his life, or capital cases, has no trial by jury. 13th. 
The master has unlunited power to flog and beat. 14th. The 
master has power to kill on the slave's raising his hand. 
15th. The master has power to shoot dead the slave running 
away, and he is guiltless. 

2nd. Inquiry. Let the committee subpoena the clerk of 
every county ui the slave States, ordering them to bring their 
dockets and records, to see whether there was ever a Avhite 
man convicted and executed for the murder of a colored man 
or slave. It is averred there was never one. It is averred 
there never was half a dozen convictions of murder in the 
thirteen States, since the Revolution, for the murder of slaves. 
Though it is averred there have been more than 100,000 mur- 
ders, Avhich would have been called murders, had the victims 
been white men instead of slaves— by overworking, under- 
feeding, want of clothing, cruelty, violence, and by deliberate 
murder. 

3rd. Let the committee send for 100 slaveholders from 
the different States, and examine as to their feeding, clothing, 
hoHdays ; the hovel of the slave, the modes of punishing, the 
number who die annually, the average whippings of males 
and females ; the difference between plantation hands and 
house hands ; the general power conferred on overseers ; the 
number of fugitives, the number of bloodhounds kept, tho 
number of slaves mangled and killed by them, the number 



ANSWEK TO clay's SPEECH. 211 

killed for running away, lifting their hands against the whites, 
executed according to law, and for what oflences, and before 
what tribunal tried ; the number outlawed in the county courts 
for running aAvay. 

4th. Examine at least one hundred overseers and their 
books as to the number of men and women on cotton, 
rice, sugar and tobacco plantations ; on all the ques- 
tions put the master; his mode of punishmg; the hours 
of labor and rest; the beds and clothing; the crop raised, 
the deaths — the usual increase; the distance of planta- 
tions on which man and wife Uve, owned by different 
masters ; the clothing, the difference in clothing between 
field hands, and those who are tavern or body, or house 
slaves. When do children begin to work, and how soon 
does the female after accouchement, take the hoe in the field ? 
What is overseer's wages — what number of persons who are 
slaves have white blood ? How many have been sold in the 
last three years ? How many families been separated, wife 
from husband, and children from parents ? 

5th. Examine twenty negro merchants, who live by buying 
and selling human flesh. 

1st. How many famihes have you broken up in the year 
past — separated portions ? Do you bind them in couples, do 
you not whip those who weep and mourn for their wives or hus- 
bands, or children left behind, until they dry their tears under 
the lash? Do you imprison, and where? Do you buy 
children by the pound ? Do you make them drag an iron 
ball and chain ? How are those females treated who become 
mothers on your journeys ? 

6th. Let one hundred persons li\dng in slave States for 
twenty years past, in the different States not related to slave- 
holders, come forward and testify. As to the inferior class 
of slaveholders owning two, three, five, or ten slaves, who 
hire the men out by the month, day, or year ; women by the 



212 ALVAN STEWART. 

dav, at washing or other handiwork. Do these small slave- 
owners work ? And generally put all the questions before 
put. What is the effect of slavery on the whites, as to duel- 
ling, bloody rencounters, and murders ? Does it not destroy 
the character and standing of poor white men ? Does it not 
degrade the white labor ? Is not labor esteemed dishonor- 
able in a white man or woman ? Are there not one quarter 
of the white adults who cannot read and write in the slave 
States ? Is not agriculture in a wretched condition in the 
slave States ? Are there not large districts of country, once 
esteemed fertile, which are now abandoned and worn out ? 
Is not slave culture eminently calculated to render the land 
sterile ? Would there not be double the amount of labor 
performed under the stimulus of cash, than what is done 
under the lash ? Is there not a promiscuous concubinage 
between the white males and the slave females ? Is not the 
Saxon blood increasing every year among the slaves ? How 
many persons do you know held as slaves, men and women, 
who are as Avhite as people generally are who give no evi- 
dence of African blood ? Is not the institution of slavery 
mutually debasing to the master and slaves ? Have you not 
known many persons or masters kUled by their slaves ? But 
did you ever know or hear of a slave killing his master, mis- 
tress, or any of the family, after they were set at liberty f 

Let the questions be put to each of the witnesses as to the 
general practice of masters and mistresses on large planta- 
tions sleeping with pistols and swords under their heads. 
Is burning a punishment common for a slave who is to be put 
to death ? 

Yth. Let 100 free colored men be called before the committee 
from the slave States, and examined on many of the foregoing 
points, and let them be asked: 1st. Have you not known every 
year fi'ee colored people kidnapped, reduced to slavery by hav- 
ing their free papers torn up, and carried off a distance and sold 



213 

— if yea, Avho were they ? 2d. Are you not in perjDetual fear 
of being kidnapped ? Have you not been struck by white per- 
sons, and abused frequently, witliout redress ? Are not free 
colored females subject to most flagrant insults from white 
men ? Do not the laws allow the mayor of a city, or sheriff 
of a county to banish you from the State in fifteen days by 
proclamation, and if you return or do not go, to sell you 
into perpetual slavery and confiscate your j^roperty, real and 
personal? Are you allowed to send your children to any 
school ? Are you not under the same penalties as to teach- 
ing and being taught, that the slaves are ? How many of 
your relations are in slavery ? How many fugitives, whom 
you knew who have attempted to escape, succeeded ? — how 
many were taken back ? — how many died in the woods and 
swamps? — how many were torn to pieces by bloodhounds ? — 
how m.any were wounded ? — how many outlawed and shot 
dead in the woods ? Are many of the free colored peo2:)le of 
the South who are adults, married to slaves ? 

8th. Let 100 fugitive slaves who have escaped to the 
northern States or to Canada, be sworn to all the sad vicis- 
situdes attending their escape from Georgia, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi. Let them state the two, three, four, and five months 
in which they travelled the length of the nation in the night, 
not in the roads but through woods, swimming rivers, with 
nothing but the north star to direct them, the hunger, rags, 
hairbreadth escapes, regarding the vast South as one jail 
yard, and every white man, ferryman and gate-tender as 
authorized to arrest the fugitive. The annals of the world 
do not furnish such noble daring for liberty as hundreds of 
cases now in Canada might attest. What were the special 
wrongs which induced you to run through 1,500 miles of 
dangers ? Was there ever a day since your remembrance, 
in which the desire to be free has not been prominent in your 
mind ? 



214: ALVAN STEWART. 

9th. Call 100 slaves from every State and every descrip- 
tion of business; let them be asked: "What do you most 
desire ? Show your backs ; how many times have you been 
flogged, and for what? Have not your wife and your 
children been whipped at different times, by the overseer's 
orders, before your face ? How long does it take a back to 
become sound and heal up from the time of a cruel flogging? 
Is not stealing often necessary to support life with comfort ? 
Have you not been ordered out of your bed, that a white 
man might occupy your place ? In addition to these, put a 
great variety of questions which will readily suggest them- 
selves to an inquiring mind. 

Let the committee make a digest of the evidence which 
these nine sources of information of slavery would furnish, 
and it would be a book of 600 pages, and if after giving the 
evidence impartially to the nation, the connnittee would dare 
to report in favor of the institution of slavery, we might call 
this a doomed land, whose judgment and destruction linger 
not. ISTo, the committee might as well call all the men of 
clear vision in North America to swear that the sun had 
shone on this land since the 19th century began, and after 
hearing this evidence should then report that there had been 
uninterrupted darkness, without sun, moon, or stars since the 
31st day of December, 1799, as to report, under the weight 
of the evidence which must be drawn forth from the course 
above suggested, that slavery was an institution which ought 
to be continued another hour in this land. They must re- 
port against it, or the stones in the street would cry out. 
For, the slaveholders, and slavery and its apologists, would, 
one and all, be crushed by the mountain of evidence, and 
buried in one common grave, so deep that the imagination 
would reel in descending that awful and unexplored 
depth. 

It is thought remarkable that the Abolitionists should have 



215 

seized hold of the right of petition — a riglit broken down, 
invaded and utterly denied. Denied by a formality of Con- 
gressional proceeding on the 21st December, 1837, which, for 
solemnity, has no parallel in the life of the confederacy. For 
what offence Avas this oldest right of man, this darling attri- 
bute of humanity, the right of petition, condemned and 
brought to the block ? Was it because she raised her voice 
against a republican form of government? Had she denied that 
the people were the source of power, or did she wish the 
nation to reswear its allegiance to England, and put on its 
colonial sackcloth, or to cover the name of Washington with 
ignominy, or that Texas might be received into the arms of the 
Republic, or that the laboring men of the North might be 
made slaves ? ISTo ! No such things. She simply desired, 
through the media of well-written memorials, that Congress 
v^oidd he pleased to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
bia ; or, in other words, repeal certain laws which Congress 
itself had enacted in 1799 or 1800, establishing slavery in 
the District of Columbia. She asked that liberty might be 
given to 7,000 most wretched slaves, who were flitting and 
sneaking around this ten miles square — this drawing-room of 
the nation — a spectacle of disgrace to our every pretension 
as a republic — 7,000 slaves to be seen by the representatives 
of the nations of the earth, each slave, a standing, moving, 
crawling witness, of the base hypocrisy of our national 
diploma. Each slave should make us hang our heads with 
shame ; each slave here makes the representative of des- 
potism tread with a firmer step ; each king of the earth finds 
his throne more firm when he sees republicanism lean on 
slavery. Each slave proclaims that republicanism is a traf- 
ficker in flesh and blood ; each slave shows we are cruel, 
proves us base, selfish, that we pursue robbery as a trade, 
piracy as a livelihood. Each slave proves w^e are unfit for 
freedom. To avenge his wrongs, the judgments of God fol- 



216 ALVAN STEWART. 

low hard upon the footsteps of the slaveholder. The slave 
tells you that where he lives the white man is ferocious ; the 
common rules of slaveholding propriety are vindicated by 
the bowie knife, sustained by the pistol, and asserted by the 
rifle. Assassination is the arraignment, trial and execution, 
among slaveholders. 

Thej enslave their own children, sell them for provisions, 
eat them up hy circuity; they are anthropophagi, second- 
handed. So do the crocodiles of the same region eat their 
young, until they are strong enough to escape. The whole 
ten miles square echoes with screams and flagellation ; a man 
beating a woman to extort, unpaid, from the quivering flesh, 
labor in some field, or over some wash-tub, enough for his 
support ; in another direction a woman, with jewels in her 
ears, is beating a man to extort labor, unrewarded, to main- 
tain Madam in idleness. In another quarter, the coffled gang 
of slaves are marching to enter the bastile erected on this ten 
mile square. Their groans ascend night and day amidst the 
cracking of whips, and the cursing of land pirates — these 
body and soul dealers. There is mourning, the wife torn 
from her husband and children to see them no more. There 
the loving child whose garment is fastened to the body in 
bloody stripes, mangled for mourning the bereavement of her 
parents. Is this a sight for the foreigner to behold ? Oh, my 
country ! how degraded ! Oh ! my God ! when shall these 
scenes come to an end ? Shall we become a proverb ? Shall 
the minions of power in the Old World sneer at our kidnap- 
ping morality ? Shall our native Indian forever despise 
civilization, built on such criminal injustice ? Well may he 
prefer the wigwam of the wilderness to palaces, built by 
money coined from the slaves' tears and blood. Well may 
he prefer the Great Spirit to the Christian's God, if the 
soxithern professor has not defamed the Divinity he professes 
to adore. 



ANSWER TO clay's SPEECH. 217 

The orator divides Abolitionists into three divisions : 1st. 
The harmless Quaker who is opposed to slavery, but is also 
more opposed to any noise and disturbance in effecting it. 
There are, truly, some such frosty Quakers, but this is not 
their general character. There is a large body of this respec- 
table denomination, who would not be so alarmed at the out- 
cry of ferocious slaveholders, foaming with fury and threaten- 
ing, in powerless impotency, as to be deterred from an 
energetic and unconquerable pursuit of those merciful consti- 
tutional provisions, which open uj) a passage from the hideous 
dungeon of slavery. No ! never can w^e suffer those noble- 
minded Quakers to be misrepresented by the flattering orator, 
who would rob them of those priceless honors purchased 
amidst dangers by day and by night in opening their doors 
to the hunted fugitives, and closing them on their bloody 
pursuers ; w^ho have bound up their wounds, fed, clothed, 
pitied, nourished and cherished, and then have taken those 
who were ready to perish, and carried them, night after 
night, on their way to the land of freedom, in their carriages, 
and putting money in their hands have referred them to the 
next man with a broad-brimmed hat, as a place of mercy, and 
pointing their finger to the North Star, which never sets, 
and always shines as the slave's compass^ hung out in the 
heavens to direct the abused man in his lonesome night wan- 
dering, on his way to the land of the Lion and the Unicorn — 
directs them to the land w^here the eagles of British mercy 
will inclose them beneath their ample wings, and make them, 
free by the power of British law ; where the pursuing slave- 
holder will cease from troubling and the weary slave will bo 
at rest. 

These men, who, in the last thirty years, have been angels 
of mercy in conducting 50,000 fugitives to Canada, w^ill not 
thank the senator for his left-handed compliments. 

Mr. Clay will do well to remember that the Friend, the 

10 



218 ALYAN STEWART. 

Quaker, abhors war, and no war so much as the continued 
war between master and slave, and that even Quakers are not 
such profound lovers of the peace of the Union, and the 
power of the States, but what they would not fear to jeopar- 
dize the former and curtail the latter, if, by so doing, slavery 
might end. 

The second class of Abolitionists named by the orator, he 
says are only " apparent " Abohtionists, because the right of 
petition is supposed by them to be violated, and therefore he 
seems to infer that these men have run on board the Abolition 
ship, until the nation has passed the danger of violating the 
Constitution on the right of petition, and after that difficulty 
is over, they will all be out, hurrahing and huzzaing, for 
slavery whips, and unpaid labor, again. This class of men I 
am an entire stranger to, having never seen one of them; I 
cannot say but what Mr. Clay is right. His knowledge is 
great, and his candor in describing a third set of Abolitionists 
must make us believe that he cannot be mistaken. ..... 



LETTEE TO THOMAS W. GIIMEE, 

GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA, 

In answer to his Proclamation offering a reward of $3,000 for the delivery 
to the jailer, at Norfolk, of Peter Johnson, Edward Smith and Isaac 
Gansey, men of color, residents of New York, attached to the schooner 
Robert Centre, charged with stealing a negro slave named Isaac, the pro- 
perty of John G. Colley, 1841. 

His Excellency Gov. Gilmer, of Yirgixia : 

•Sir : As a citizen of the State of New York, and as a 
member of this Repubhc, I cannot deny that I feel a deep 
interest in the issne which you and the heut.-governor 
of your State, have seen fit to create and tender as be- 
tween New York and Yirginia, on a topic of the most solemn 
interest, involving the dearest rights of men, the personal 
liberties not only of the citizens of the State of New York, 
but also of those of other States, together with those of the 
stranger and visitor from other countries. The question is 
one of such magnitude, that I trust it will be considered a 
sufficient apology for the humblest citizen to run and shut the 
door against the approach and entrance of such ill-omened 
principles, which, for the first time, by ingenious constructions, 
are seeking admission into that group of fraternal maxims, 
under whose benignant sway we and our fathers have lived, 
protected at home, and have been defended when abroad. 

Your predecessor, in July, 1839, demanded three colored 
men then attached to the schooner Robert Centre, to be 
surrendered up by the governor of this State to the authori- 
ties of Virginia," " for having feloniously stolen from one John 



220 ALVAN STEWART. 

G. Colley, a certain negro slave named Isaac, the property of 
said Colley." Mr. King, mayor of Norfolk, certifies that 
Colley, of Norfolk, mad« an oath before him, of which the 
above is the form and substance, on the 22d July, 1839. 

These are the facts. This is the case made by Virginia. 
On these facts you reiterate the demand of your predecessor, 
that the three men should be delivered up as felons, and that 
you intend to make the world beheve you are in earnest, for 
since the governor of this State has refused comphance with 
your demand, you have offered a reward of $3,000 to any 
person in this State, or your own, to kidnap them and sur- 
render them to Virginia, and thus violate the sovereignty of 
New York, Avhile the individuals capturing, kidnapping and 
surrendering these men, would subject themselves to be 
indicted for a felony, and imprisoned, from five to ten years, 
in the New York State prison. 

It may be added as a part of the facts, in this place, that a 
search was made on board the Robert Centre, a ship lying in 
the port of New York, by the master of the slave Isaac, or his 
agent, where, Isaac being found, tlie master or agent, in 
defiance of the law of Congress of 1793, without examination 
before any court or judicial authority, and in defiance of the 
laws of this State, committed a felony, punishable for several 
years in the State prison, in taking Isaac from this State 
without lawful authority and in defiance of our laws. 

But dismissing for the present the reward of $3,000 offered 
to violate the sovereignty of New York, and the crime of 
abduction and kidnapping committed by the citizens of 
Virginia on Isaac, we will return to the consideration of the 
affidavit made before the mayor of Norfolk, which contains a 
statement of your case, as you see fit to make it, after having 
been admonished by the governor of this State, that it might 
be in the power of the authorities of Virginia to amend the 
• affidavit so as to state at ichat time Isaac was stolen — the 



LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 221 

affidavit being silent on those two important particulars, as to 
the time tohen or place loliere Isaac Avas stolen. 

On a case which is entirely silent as to what time, in the 
course of this century, the crime w^as committed, or as to 
Avhat place on this globe the oiFence was perpetrated, whether 
in Virginia, Vermont, Jamaica, France or Africa, Virginia 
demands, on such a case^ a surrender. Virginia does not 
pretend that she can improve her affidavit, on reflection, by 
fixing either time or place of offisnce ; but demands that the 
governor of New York, Avith the aid of our sheriffs and con- 
stables, should break into the houses of these three freemen 
at midnight — take, bind, fetter and deliver these citizens to the 
waiting authorities of Virginia. 

It is one of the fundamental rules of merciful justice, in- 
herited by us from our ancestors, tliat every intendment 
shall be made in favor of the innocence of the accused imtil 
the contrary is made to appear. Might not jSTew York appeal 
to the candor of Virginia, and ask if the delivery of the ac- 
cused would not be the prostration of this principle ? "Would 
not the surrender have been an admission of what Virginia 
dare not assert, that the slave was stolen from her jurisdiction? 

There is no tiTne shown when this pretended felony was 
committed, whether one or ten years before. It is presumed, 
therefore, that if the offence were not outlawed by lapse of 
time, the same would have appeared. 

For it will not be pretended, if it appeared that it was 
impossible to convict the accused on the face of the papers 
accompanying the demand, that there would be any obhga- 
tion on the part of the Kew York executive to surrender and 
allow Virginia to drag her citizens from 500 to 800 miles, to 
one of her tribunals, where the individual must be acquitted. 
This would be solemn trifling, as between the States, while it 
might be destructive to the peace and prosperity of the 
acquitted citizen ! 



222 ALVAN STEWART. 

But the case made by Virginia, presenting the great inter- 
State proposition by which she mtends to abide, nolens volens, 
though the confederacy is dissolved in its maintenance, is 
simply this : If these men had taken Colley's slave from him 
on his middle passage from the banks of the Gambia, in 
Africa, under the line of the equator, on the high seas, and 
should have brought him back to New York, Virginia could 
demand his surrender ; for, if this affidavit is sufficient to 
demand the accused now, it would be in the case supposed. 
Suppose these three men had found CoUey in Africa, in his 
own cabin, throttling Isaac and putting his fetters on, and 
should have delivered Isaac, and have afterward been found 
in New York, this affidavit, if held good now, would in that 
case compelKew York to deliver up. 

Suppose these men to have taken Isaac from Colley, in this 
State, Avhile the master was at Saratoga Springs, if this affi- 
davit is valid for the surrender of these citizens now, then, in 
that case, Virginia might take cognizance of criminal offences 
committed in this State ; yes, she might draw before her 
tribunals offences, real or imaginary, committed against her 
citizens on the high seas, Africa, New York, or Vermont, in 
any time past, within the memory of man. 

Virginia's proposition is, that for a wrong done her citizens, 
or her laws, no matter when or where committed, whether on 
this side of the Atlantic or the other, on this side of the 
Equator or the other, wherever the cold freezes or heat 
Avarms, if the culprit is found in any one of the twenty-six 
States, the Constitution compels the executive of the State 
where the accused are found, to surrender them. 

Is this a provison of the Constitution of our Union, so highly 
lauded? No, if a provision had been offered by the Con- 
vention of the American people, as wide in its power of 
mischief and unchecked tyranny, as Virginia now contends for 
through you, the American people, in their State Conventions 



LETTER TO THE GOVERKOR OF VIRGINIA. 223 

for consideration of the same, would have vetoed such a pro- 
vision with such a roar of disapprobation, as that its last 
echoes should still break in upon the slumbers of executive 
despotism and repress the first yearnings of slavery's grasp 
at universal dominion. Must slavery be maintained at the 
expense of imiversal liberty ? Is it not enough that your 
hand is at the throat of your trembling slave ? Must the 
hberties of the North be offered as a sacrifice to such a 
horrible institution ? Am I not in danger, if your construc- 
tion of the Constitution were right, of having this newspaper, 
if perchance a stray copy should reach your Excellency, laid 
before a Norfolk mayor with your affidavit that in this paper 
I had refused to acknowledge that slavery was jure divino^ 
and that I had therefore called on your slaves to rise in insur- 
rection against their masters, by implication, or more like the 
present affidavit, you should swear to a legal conclusion, that 
I had excited insurrection, and that, in legal contemplation, 
you might for the purpose of a demand of my person from 
the executive of this State, swear that there was not a head 
left on a slaveholder's shoulders in Virginia. According to 
your affidavit, it is no matter when or where I produced the 
insurrection. No matter, says your affidavit, if I caused an 
insurrection of slaves twenty years ago, and in the West 
Indies, the governor of New York is yet bound to deliver 
me up on your requisition. The doctrine of the King of 
England, as far as time is concerned, must apply to Virginia, 
Nullum tempus occurrit Virginia, There seem to be attri- 
butes belonging to the sovereignty of Virginia, which belong 
to no earthly government besides. All governments, except 
Virginia, seem to feel, that, however lawless their desires, 
still, a prudent respect for the opinions of mankind compels 
them to respect time and place. But Virginia, in defence of 
that singularly amiable, evangelical and democratic institu- 
tion of slavery, asserts the right of putting on the attributes 



224 ALT AN 6TEWAET. 

of Omnijiotence — wliicli disregard time and place — or time 
and space. It seems, then, that it is time for mankind, on 
this and on the other side of the globe, in every parallel of 
latitude and longitude, savage or civilized, Christian or 
Mohammedan, pagan or idolatrous, to open their eyes to the 
consideration of a new power which has arisen on the earth. 
It takes cognizance of all transgressions affecting the slave- 
holding rights of Virginia — that she has a legal ubiquity — no 
time, no space can fetter the application of her vindictive 
visitorial criminal power, when put forth to protect that 
lovely institution of unpaid labor, extracted from men and 
women by the singular properties and blessed agency of the 
RepubHcan Constitutional cart-wliip, placed in the hands of 
Virginia, as the governing motive, to induce her to enter the 
confederacy and adopt the Constitution. 

But it is hojKMlthat Virginia Avill be as mild and forbearing 
as tlie necessities of the "jieculiar institution" Avill permit, 
in relation to her sister States, and the other states and king- 
doms of the world, and not enforce the rights of Virginia with 
too much rigor, while mankind are recovering from the sur- 
prise felt at the discovery of their new position. For the 
people of this country, at least of these States, if your affidavit 
is held good, must feel that they hold their existence subject 
to a new dangerous tenure, and they may add in their liturgy 
a prayer, that "from sudden death or transportatioti to Vir 
gi7iia^ good Lord deliver us." 

I come to a second question which has grown out of this 
transaction, which I hope may not be considered improper, 
even for your Excellency, to look full in the face. And that 
is, by what authority, the man Isaac — not slave — the man 
Isaac, was taken in the port of New York, from the ship 
Robert Centre, by the two white men of Virginia, Avho, on 
finding Isaac in this ship, without any judicial process what- 
soever, took and kidnapped him and by a forcible abduction, 



LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 225 

the said Isaac, against his will, was carried from the free 
State of 'New York, into the State of Virginia, and made a 
slave of. Isaac was brought before no authority. No judge, 
court or justice ever gave a certificate, in this State, that 
Isaac owed service to any person in Virginia. 

It was one of the clearest cases of kidnapping which can be 
imagined. By the Revised Statutes of the State of New 
York, 2d vol., 664th page, 28th section, the offence and pun- 
ishment are described in these words : " Every person who 
shall without lawful authority forcibly seize and confine any 
other, or shall inveigle or kidnap any other with intent either 
1st. To cause such other person to be secretly confined or 
imprisoned in this State against his Avill, or 2d. To cause such 
other person to be sent out of this State against his will, 
or, 3d. To cause such person to be sold as a slave or in any 
way held to service against his will, shall, upon conviction, be 
punished with imprisonment in a State prison not exceeding 
ten years.'''* Here is a most horrible crime committed by the 
insolence of slaveholders breaking in upon the sovereignty of 
New York, and forcibly carrying away a human being, under 
the protection of our law as much as the governor of this 
State. And the sovereignty of New York, and the majesty 
of her laws, would have been no more injured in the abduc- 
tion of tlie governor or chancellor of this State, than of the 
man Isaac. By the constitution of this State, all men are 
equal in the eye of our laws ; all, equally entitled to her 
beneficent protection ; the highest man is not above her 
power ; the humblest is secure beneath her protection. 
With our constitution, as a question of protection, there is 
no high, no low, no black, no Avhite, no slave, no master ; no, 
the law is, like the atmosphere, stretched over the entire 
sovereignty of New York, furnishing vitality to all, it is the 
poor man's palladium, the aegis of the rich ; the poor colored 
infant, sleeping in its cradle, is defended against the prowling 

10* 



226 ALVAN STEWART. 

kidnapper, with the same tender solicitude, which would 
defend the bishop ministering at the altar. However 
despised the human being may have been in foreign lands, 
however scarred with the slaveholder's whip, however 
broken in spirit. Yes ! no matter if he has been made 
ignorant of his high destiny by law ; no matter if he has been 
sold on a thousand auction boards, as a chattel ; or been out- 
lawed for seeking liberty ; or a price offered for his head by 
ferocious brutality ; or if wounds inflicted by bloodhounds 
are yet unheeded ; or if hunger and poverty have left but the 
uncovered frameicork of a man ; or the light of knowledge 
has never broken in upon the dark chambers of his soul, yet, 
the moment the ship brings him within the headlands of New 
York, the great folds of her constitutional hberty encircle him 
as a garment, her humanity lifts him up, benevolence feeds 
him and pours oil upon his wounds, while the laAV, stern, 
inflexible, becomes his sentinel to guard his every step by day 
and defend his sleep by night. There is no recognition in 
this State of that infernal maxim, worthy of a Jeffreys, which 
prevails south of Mason and Dixon's line, by which a colored 
man is presumed a slave until he proves the negative. 

All men are presumed free in this State. Now look at the 
crmie committed against the constitution and laws of the 
State of New York, yes, against every man, woman and 
child who breathes within our limits, by the forcible abdica- 
tion of the man Isaac by two Virginia kidnappers. It will 
not help the matter for you to say he was CoUey's slave. 
That was the very point judicially to be proved under the act 
of Congress, 1793, and under the statutes of New York, be- 
fore you attempt to remove him. Have the slaveholder's 
words^ that a man is a slave become judicial proof, record 
evidence ? Is liberty nothing ? Suppose it had appeared 
that Isaac had been kidnapped ten years before from this 
State, and carried to Virginia, and been sold a dozen times, 



LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 227 

he would have been a free man still, and so our courts would 
have decided. There are a dozen other ways by which a 
man who is a slave may become free. But these kidnappers 
seemed to think that there was no mode so acceptable as 
the original one by which slavery was created and introduced 
into the world — the knock down and drag out title ; the club- 
law title deed— and under that title is Isaac now held. Vir- 
ginia is in duty bound to return that man Isaac to the 
authorities of this State, where the kidnappers found him, 
and if Colley had any claim on Isaac, the courts are open for 
its assertion. 

Again, have we any reason to beUeve Virginia would 
deliver up the kidnappers, on the requisition of the governor 
of this State, on an indictment found against them for kid- 
napping ? Virginia may have the opportunity in less than 
six months to see what she will do ; but there is not the 
least reason to believe that Virginia, who talks so largely 
about constitutional compacts, would sui^ender these men up. 
These men should be indicted for kidnapping a man in the 
State of ISTew York and carrying him away into perpetual 
and hopeless bondage, while the three men you have oiFered 
the $3,000 bounty for, according to your own account, stole 
a man out of slavery to bring him into the daylight of liberty, 
into a free State. Look at the character of the oflenders. One 
set of men, whom you demand to be dehvered to Virginia, 
their crime is in aiding a poor slave to the recovery of his long- 
lost liberty — the most holy, precious right of man — helping a 
poor, miserable slave to escape from bitter slavery, a life used 
up and wasted for the convenience of another, helping him to 
escape cruel scourging, hunger, nakedness, ignorance, bru- 
tality, unrequited toil and all the uncomputed sorrows of a 
slave. The kidnappers of Virginia, for gold, in violation of 
the laws of the Union and of this State, ruthlessly, without a 
particle of authority, laid their cruel hands upon Isaac and 



ALVAN STEWART. 

forced him back to suffer the vengeance of an enraged master, 
who will glut his rage on the unoffending and quivering flesh 
of poor Isaac, for having committed high treason against his 
authority, for the great crime of having preferred liberty to 
slavery. The deed done by the three New York men is 
worthy of being commemorated as the three men of the 
Revolution were honored, who dehvered up Major Andre. 
These men, if they did what you allege, to aid their poor 
countryman to escape slavery, deserve the thanks of the 
civilized and Christianized man throughout the world ; for 
they are like the poor widow whom the Saviour commended 
for thi'owing her mite into the treasury: she did what she 
could — these three colored men did what they could to miti- 
gate the cruel fate of poor Isaac. 

The insulted sovereignty of Xew York is wounded, through 
the sides of poor Isaac, and cries, like the blood of Abel, to. 
Heaven for vengeance against those assassins of liberty, 
violators of law, who-have robbed the State of New York of 
her peculiar glory of defending and protecting the lowest of 
our species from all injury and violence, unless done by the 
intervention of the due process of the law. But these kid- 
nappers of Virghiia will be demanded, but will not be sur- 
rendered. 

But, sir, there is one point in this controversy, which strikes 
me as the most alarming feature in this whole traasaction, 
and manifests, to my mind, the reckless daring of Virginia 
throuo-h her governor which is unparalleled in the annals of 
State intercourse : I mean your offer of $3,000 reward for the 
men you are pleased to call fugitives. To do you no injustice, 
your proclamation is here given verbatim : 

"By the Governor of the State of Virginia — Proclamation: 

" Whereas, a felony was committed at Norfolk, in the State of 
Virginia, in the month of July, 1839, by Petee Johnson, Edward 



LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OK VIRGINIA. 229 

Smith andlsAAC Gansey oi-Gaesey, men of color, at the time attached 
to the schooner Robert Centre, and believed to have been residents 
of the city or State of ISTevsr York, where they may probably be fuuiul, 
and the said Peter Johnson, Edward Smith and Isaac Gansey or 
Garsey have fled from justice and are now going at large; therefore, 
I, Thomas W. Gilmer, governor of the State of Virginia, have tliought 
proper to issue this proclamation of $1,000 to any person or persons 
who will apprehend and convey to the jail of the borough of Norfolk, 
any one of said offenders ; of $3,000 upon the delivery of all of them 
to the jailer of said borough of Norfolk. And I do moreover require 
all officers of this State, civil and military, and earnestly request all 
persons within or loithout the limits thereof to use their utmost 
exertions to apprehend the said felons, that they may be brought to 
justice. 

" Given under my hand as governor and under the seal of the State 
at Richmond, this 13th day of November, 1840, and the 60th year of 
the commonwealth. 

" Thomas W. Gilmer. 

" ' National Intelligencer ' will please insert six times. — Nov. 17th." 

This proclamation is a renunciation on the part of Virginia, 
of the Constitution of the United States, at a time when she 
is pleading with New York for its punctilious and most 
solemn observance in relation to these same three men for 
whom you have offered this enormous rew^ard. This is anew 
mode of appeal from the decision of the governor of New 
York. The governor of New York says to you, " These men 
have committed no felony or crime acknowledged by the 
laws of nations, or of this State, and cannot be delivered up 
to the authorities of Virginia, in pursuance of the Constitu- 
tion and the laws of Congress." You then offer an enormous 
bribe to any miserable caitiff who may be found in Virginia, 
New York, or in any other State, or in fact to any foreigner 
who has the brutal courage to commit the crime of kidnap- 
ping on these men, and a high-handed felony against the laws 
of New York, to deliver these innocent men into your pos- 



230 ALVAN STEWART. 

session. Whoever should be cleluded, in this State, Virginia, 
or elsewhere, to arrest and convey these men under your 
proclamation to Virginia, would come witliin the tremendous 
penalties of the statute of this State, already cited, especially 
the 2d clause of the 28th section, which says, that, whoever 
shall, without lawful authority, forcibly seize or confine 
another ; " to cause such other jDerson to be sent out of this 
State against his will, shall be punished in the State prison not 
exceeding ten years." 

You therefore perceive, that you have offered $3,000, not 
to honor the law, but to break the laws of a sister State, and 
involve the transgressors in the most serious calamities, from 
having been seduced by your gubernatorial bribe. And 
these men-thieves, if Virginia did not throw ofi* the obliga- 
tions imposed by the Constitution, must be delivered up ^ls 
kidnappers, who had been seduced by your bribe to the com- 
mission of this crime. 

This law of New York was made to protect her citizens 
and its own sovereignty, against the machinations of foreign 
intruders, whether they be governors or individuals. You 
could not refuse to deliver up those who earn your bribe and 
flee to you for protection ; for it will not be pretended, but 
that, by the laws of Virginia and the law of nations, the 
violent and forcible abduction of free men by an unauthorized 
force from their own State to a foreign one, is, and always 
has been, regarded as one of the highest crimes which could 
be committed. 

But there is one point of view connected with your extra- 
ordinary proclamation, which, I cannot deny, excites in my 
mind a most tender commiseration for your own personal 
safety, in case your bribe to rob these three colored men of 
their liberty should be found effectual, and they should be car- 
ried out of this State. I am serious, sir, when I tell you, 
that your own personal liberty is in danger every moment ; 



LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 231 

for if the colored men should be carried off to Virginia by 
the stimulus of your bribe, you could, yea more, you would 
be indicted in some one of the counties of this State through 
which the colored men were abducted, as the procuring 
cause of their arrest, as the principal felon ; for you say in your 
proclamation, that you *' earnestly request all persons within 
or without the limits of Virginia to use their utmost exer- 
tions to apprehend them ;" and you say they are probably in 
the City or State of New York. Your object is, therefore, 
reheved of every ambiguity ; it is to get, by the means of 
these 3,000 pieces of silver, the innocent betrayed into your 
hands. 

There is not a lawyer in the United States who is entitled 
to the appellation, who would not agree in pronouncing 
judgment against you, as the main felon, under our law, in 
case these men Avere arrested by that proclamation in this 
State and carried to iSTorfoIk jail, in Virginia. You " entreat " 
A to murder B — you "entreat" C to burn the house 
of D — you " entreat " E to rob F of his purse ; if your 
entreaties are complied w4th, is there a criminal authority, 
in England or this country, which would not pronounce you 
a murderer in the first, guilty of arson in the second, and of 
robbery in the third cases supposed ? You must remember, 
you have no authority in the State of New York, unless our 
governor dehvers the fugitives to you on your requisition. 
By entreating another to kidnap and carry these men off, 
you become a trespasser, " ah initio /" and come within the 
maxim, " Qui facit per alium^ facit per se^ Remember 
when an indictment is once found, the offence will never be 
outlawed, although you might refuse to deUver yourself up 
for two or three years to come, while governor ; but that is 
a long road which never turns, and the moment you ceased to 
be governor, your successor's first act, if he did his duty, 
would be to deliver you up on the requisition of the governor 



332 ALVAN STEWAET. 

of this State, to come here, be tried, condemned, and undergo, 
for ten years or less, in our State prison, a felon's fite, and 
there learn to sympathize with the three colored men whom 
you wickedly caused to be dragged from their own Slate to 
waste their lives m Virginia's penitentiary cells, for an act 
which the Creator of all men had declared to be one of the 
duties of man to man, " to deliver the oppressed." 

And who has converted one of the duties enjoined by our 
common Creator into a crime ? A community of slave- 
holders. Why all this trouble and distress, which seem to 
threaten this Republic and individuals ? The answer is as 
easy to give as it is disgracefully painful to state. Slavery, 
the principle of taking man and converting him into a chattel, 
into property, by thrusting him down from his lofty estate, 
to stand on a level, in a legal point, with the lowing ox, and 
neighing horse. To talk of regulating such an institution as 
slavery, by constitutions, just and equitable laws, in which 
two communities must administer these constitutions and 
laws, the one a community of freemen, sensitively alive to 
personal liberty ; the other a community of slaveholders, who, 
have to reverse, as it regards one half of its own population, 
all the rules of morahty and justice, and apply the rules 
which govern beasts, to men ; these States must necessarily 
he in eternal conflict until liberty conquers slavery, or slavery 
overturns the liberty of all. The vicious principle which has 
been admitted into the Republic of slavery, forbids the pos- 
sibility of our complicated system of liberty and slavery, in 
juxtaposition, surviving the shocks to which it must be con- 
stantly exposed, in endeavoring to maintain propositions in 
eternal hostility to each other. 

As to the great argument put forth by Gov. Seward, it is 
a perfect justification of the course he has adopted in assert- 
ing that the offence charged by Virginia is not one known by 
the laAvs of this State or the law of nations, and that Gov- 



LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. 233 

ernor Seward is to be the judge whether the alleged olFender 
has committed such an offence for which he will surrender up 
or not. If the argument of the governor of New York is 
not sound, personal liberty rests on a foundation of sand, and 
we are in jeopardy every hour. My remarks were intended for 
the defects in the affidavit of time and 2^lace, which Virginia 
refused to amend, if she could ; being determined to extend 
by that operation, the dominion of slaveholding over a terri- 
tory hitherto unconquered from liberty. 2d. I examined the 
high-handed and unauthorized transgression of our sove- 
reignty in kidnapping Isaac by citizens of Virginia. 
3d. The vmparalleled attempt by the corruption of a large 
bribe, on your part offered by proclamation, by which you 
entreat persons to come here and abduct, in defiance of 
severe laws of this State against the offence, the three men. 
Hoping that you may, in the calmness of retirement, review 
your course and turn your eyes to the tremendous machinery 
which has been called into line for action against these men, 
to wit, your immense bribe, your State legislature, and your 
auxiliaries, the other slaveholding States; all of this array of 
force is- about to measure swords with the free State of New 
York to compel us, by appealing to our fears, since you have 
failed to convince our understanding, to acknowledge the 
unlimited diminion of slavery over liberty herself. 

However this matter may eventuate, it will be the conso- 
lation of Gov. Seward, that he did what he could to vindi- 
cate and defend the liberty of the Republic from the assaults 
of a grasping and relentless despotism, seeking to override 
the great barriers of constitutional freedom, purchased by 
the blood, and defended by the bravery of our ancestors. 



AN ADDEESS, 

BY THE "NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE," 

APPOINTED BY THE CONVENTION WHICH NOMINATED JAMES G 
BIRNEY FOE PRESIDENT, AND THOMAS EAKLE EOR YICE-PEESI- 
DENT OF THE UNITED STATES, IN APEIL, 1840, AT THE CITY 
OF ALBANY. 

To the friends of Liberty and of the oppressed in the United States, who 
intend to honor the " high obligation resting on the People of the Free 
States to remove slavery by moral and political action, as prescribed in the 
Constitution of the United States,''^ the following address is most respect- 
fully submitted by the National Committee of Correspondence. 

Men, Beetheen, Fellow-laboeees, Fellow-citizens, and 

Feiends : 

The work of republican reformation is begun. Hu- 
manity, a new element, has been found in the ballot-boxes of 
1840. The voice of stern justice is beginning to sp^ak from 
a new place. The power which will overthrow slavery has 
been discovered ; it is the terse literature of the northern 
ballot-box. 

The groans of three millions of bondmen have penetrated 
the-ballot box, the abode of the sovereign's opinions. The 
ceaseless cry of the slave is respected in a new quarter. 
Every independent freeman is an American sovereign, and is 
proprietor of a portion of that power which can destroy 
slavery. It is his sovereignty, his manhood, his abstract 
right, enforced into a stern reality ; it is his ballot in the box. 
There have been found, for the lirst time, in 1840, electoral 
tickets for President and*'Vice-President of the United States, 
in the ballot urn, the names of men who would employ all 



NATIONAL committee's ADDRESS. 235 

just and constitutional means to elevate the chatteled slave to 
a fellow sovereio-n — a freeman. 

All men are ready to inquire, can slaves be made into 
freemen, at the polls ? We answer. Yes : and six thousand 
voters, at the late election, in our free States, have said the 
same. 

Six thousand men have refused longer to make the condi- 
tion of the slave more hopeless, by clothing his master and 
the pro-slavery man Avith power to further crush him down. 
But these six thousand men have said by their votes, " We 
will employ our power to deliver^ not to bind ; to set free, 
not to imprison ; to make freemen, not slaves ; to make a 
republic, not a despotism ; to make men, not things ; to 
increase our wealth, not our poverty ; to sustain our religion, 
and not abolish it ; to preserve the Union, not to dissolve it ; 
to make the New World the abode of freedom, and not the 
habitation of voiceless bondage." 

These six thousand men hope, with the assistance of others, 
to present 8,000 specimens of slave chattels, in the District 
of Columbia, converted mto men, with an " inalienable right 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

To secure this glorious object, every freeman in the United 
States is invited^to come to our assistance, at every corpora- 
tion, village, town, county. State, and Presidential election, 
from this hour until the general jubilee shall ring from Lake 
Memphremagog to the waters of Ponchartrain ; from the 
Penobscot to the Colorado. For these six thousand men 
believe that to secure this grand object, the voting literature 
of the nation must not be false to freedom, containing slave- 
holdhig and pro-slavery names, which is the substi^nce of the 
present emission of the ballot-box, and must be expurgated. 
For who would beheve that for half of a century, the majority 
of names found in those boxes, who have governed this land, 
was in favor of aristocracy founded on the skin, caste, unpaid 



236 ALVAN STEWART. 

wages, violence, blood, sale of human flesh, separation of 
husbands and wives, parents and children, ignorance, irreli- 
gion, infidehty, atheism, adultery, stealing, robbery, hunger, 
nakedness, broken limbs, crushed hearts, lunacy, idiocy, 
mutilated limbs, scourged backs, the slash of bowie knives, 
duels, assassinations, war, murder, the pursuing of slaves with 
bloodhounds, idleness, licentiousness, coerced amalgamation, 
poverty, pride, contempt of labor, insolvency, gambUng, 
cockfighting, horse-racing, piracy sanctioned by law, outlawry 
for love of liberty, with coffles, whips, fetters and chains, as 
the badges of undone men. 

These law-makers have seen the South taking from the 
North, under the shape of credit, for twenty-five years past, 
ten millions per annum, to supply the deficiency which the 
whip could not extort from their own slaves, never to be 
repaid. Northern manufactories are now standing still for 
want of money abstracted by the South to maintam slavery 
in its idleness, and despotism in its dignity, and free laborers 
are thrown out of employ, for the benefit of those who live 
on the unpaid labor of the slaves. 

The slave power in the halls of our national legislature has 
so molded the political economy of the country as to cripple 
the interests of free labor, derange norther^ capital, and re- 
duce the free North, as far as possible, to the level of the 
enslaved South, and thus secure between the free and the 
slave States that balance of power which, on a system of equal 
legislation, the South could never attain. 

We have here set down some of the curses of slavery, 
which have so many distinct names in our language. Each 
of these -yjipers has been sustained by consent of American 
law makers, in sucking the warm heart's blood of this nation, 
until the country stagers from debility. We have seen the 
frown of heaven lowering on this land, in the tempests of the 
ocean, in the tornadoes of the land, the fires in our cities, our 



NATIONAL committee's ADDRESS. 237 

villages, our steamboats, Avasting pestilence, and Lloody 
wars. We have seen a thousand savages maintaining against 
us a five years' war, while the bones of our youth are left to 
whiten amid the everglades of Florida. We have seen the 
value of property changed from the most extravagant estima- 
tion to the lowest depression ; bankruptcies unparalleled in 
the history of a civilized people ; States as well as individuals 
dishonoring their engagements in foreign lands, as well as at 
home ; general rum has stared all men full in the face ; and 
these things, it is believed, are sent from the armory of the 
Almighty, as avengers of his wronged and insulted people, 
whom we have crushed as slaves under our feet, and have 
refused to listen to their cries, in our pulpits, our press, our 
State or Congressional legislation. Yes, the present Con- 
gress has broken down the Constitution of the land in its 
zeal to silence the voice of petition. In this, our RepubUcan 
representatives have outstripped the boldest and wildest 
flights of despotic fanaticism — have attempted to legislate 
away human nature itself — have taken to themselves a seat 
beyond and without the pale of civilized legislation amono- 
men. And all this, to show their humble devotion to the 
slave power. 

The great political doctors of this land have felt of the 
nation's pulse, looked her in the face, inquired for all symp- 
toms, modes of diet, manner of repose, and her sort of amuse- 
ments and various exercises. One set of these pro-slavery 
physicians profess to have discovered nothing but a corn ou 
one of the toes, while the other thinks a little more exercise 
would give a finer flow of animal spirits, and relieve the 
patient from a certain dyspepsia or sleeplessness which he 
has discovered. In vain do we point them to the festering 
sore that must be probed to the bottom, and without delay, 
lest the deadly gangrene ensue. We are told that the patient 
was born into the world with that ulcer, that although it has 



238 ALVAN STEWART. 

increased five-fold, and is abstractly an evil, and might ab- 
stractly be considered the cause of an abstract ailment, and 
an abstract lingering, and may be followed by an abstract 
death, but surely nothing more, unless it was abstractly 
buried in an abstract grave. The pro-slavery doctors have 
hunted for all causes for the afilictions of their patient except 
the right one. 

To drop our figure, it seems plain that one million two 
hundred thousand laborers, especially if they are slaves, can 
never maintain four millions five hundred thousand idle peo- 
ple, who have so many extravagances to gratify. If slavery 
were abolished this day, the slaves, as freemen, would from 
the stimulus of reward, })roduce double what is now extracted 
from them, and with vastly less pain. Again, there is nearly 
one million of idle poor men and women in the South, who 
are very poor, but still refuse to work, as it is disgraceful for 
white people to labor, in a slave country. This milUon would 
rejoice to labor for its reward, when its disgrace was 
removed. The South and North would immediately flourish, 
and at least fifty miUions of permanent wealth be added to 
the nation annually ; and the solid happiness of the nation 
doubled, besides being relieved from those periodical spasms 
and insolvencies which so seriously convulse it every seven or 
eight years. The danger of insurrection at home, or invasion 
from abroad would be removed to an interminable distance. 

Each of the great parties in this country, for the sake of 
poUtical power, has bowed with the most fawning submission 
to the two hundred and fifty thousand piratical janizaries, the 
men-consumers of the republic, and agreed, for the sake of 
power, to stand guard, night and day, as sentinels, armed to 
the teeth, on the confines of man-chattelism, to defend the 
two hundred and fifty thousand men-appropriators in their 
heaven-abhorred villainy, against the insurrection of the op- 
pressed, or the invasion of holy and legal philanthropy. 



NATIONAL committee's ADDRESS. 239 

The present Whig party, which has swept over the land 
with the power of a tornado, has acted in subservience to the 
slaveholder. The northern ballot-box is crimsoned with the 
blood of the slave, both parties having laid him on the altar 
of venality, as a sacrifice to propitiate the goddess of power, 
and have thus sought her favor, the one party by the dex- 
terity with which they laid on the wood, while the other, not 
to be outdone, displayed a cultivated vigor in binding the 
victim. The successful party, who bound the sacrifice, Avill 
move around that altar, and install their high priest in solemn 
form, when he will be called on to swear to defend the vicljm 
and the altar from intrusion, by the blood of Bunker Hill, by 
the retreating, shoeless, blood-trackmg soldiers of the Revo- 
lution, and as he marches around the blue flames, will further 
swear by the Goddess of Liberty and by the hturgy of equal 
rights, by the length of Mason and Dixon's line, by the awful 
and unrevealed mysteries of the implied compact, by that 
uplifting faith which grows stronger and stronger, as the 
evidence on which it rests grows weaker and weaker, by the 
high commands of the unwritten part of our Constitution, by 
its wonderful power to repeal the written portion, by the 
surprising wisdom each Avhite man possesses to make a con- 
stitution for every black man, as he runs along, by all that is 
glorious in white^ by all that is contemptible in hlach^ by all 
that is tremendous in color, by all that is subHme in straight 
hair, by all that is horrible in kinked^ " I, William Henry 
Harrison, President of the United States, as Martin Van 
Buren did before me, will forever protect the altar of slavery, 
with its victims, from all encroachments by the humane ; I, 
the said President, afiirm there is no human arm so mighty, 
no constitution so strong, no philanthropy so penetrating, no 
democracy so flagrant as to be able to unbind one of those 
chatteled victims." The President and Vice-President of the 
United States elect, have declared, yea, pledged themselves 



240 ALVAN STEWART. 

to maintain the greatest lie in the universe — that a father can 
chattelize his own child, into a slave ; that the insolence of 
piracy is true southern chivalry ; that a human flesh-proprietor 
has a right to make others groan with pain that he may sing 
for joy ; to make others go hungry, that he may be fed to the 
full ; to wear out others that he may be Avell preserved ; to 
make others he on the cold ground that he may lie canopied 
on his bed of down ; to cause other men's wives to be sold to 
buy ottomans for his own ; to send his own colored children 
to be sold in a market that his white ones may be educated 
in a college ; to send other men's sons to be wasted with toil 
in the fogs of a rice swamp, that on the avails his son may 
whirl and dance in the circle of fashion. 

It is held to be the prerogative of constitutional highway- 
manism to have the custody of treason's beetle and wedges to 
split this Union from end to end. These patent right Union- 
splitters follow their profession, for the profits of the pursuit, 
from the instinct of gain, as a mode of aweing northern free- 
men to silence, Avhile they more quietly devour their domestic 
prey. It is a part of the slaveholder's birthright, that if the 
business of slavery is in danger of being shorn of its profits, 
he may embark in high treason as a kindred pursuit, but more 
exalted, as a man who has served an apprenticeship in the 
destruction of the rights of men must necessarily have a 
greater prospect of success than other men, when he raises 
the standard of treason, and seeks to enslave his country and 
rob it of its independence, as he has individuals of their 
liberty. A slaveholder must be indebted for his prosperity 
either to the destruction of the freedom of his country, or of 
single persons. He is a liberty consumer, either by retail or 
at wholesale. It is by force of the foregoing principle, that 
the South have supplied the ten millions of deficit of their 
own slaves, by thrusting their greedy fingers into the pockets 
of northern industry. Violent changes in the general policy 



NATIONAL committee's ADDEE83. 241 

of this nation they hare always promoted, as the bankrupt- 
cies consequent thereon, and the great uproar of distress, 
have enabled them to charge to the account of the govern' 
ment, that which has sprung from the ruinous credit obtained 
by slaveholders in the Xorth, to supply that inabihty whicli 
slavery has to maintain itself. Thus w^e have been in the 
roar and noise of embargoes, non-intercourse laws, war, a 
United States Bank— expiiing as unconstitutional, a tariff as 
necessary, a Bank of the United States again chartered as 
constitutional, again overthrown as unconstitutional, a high 
tariff imposed by the South, till it was discovered by them 
to be unconstitutional, nulliiication, splitting the Union, se- 
cession ; till Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun compromised 
the tariff to death. The South, by its vote declared the late 
war, m opposition to the desire of the merchant and the 
sailors, from the pretended yearnings of humanity, to rescue 
and protect six hundred seamen, impressed into the British 
service under the plea that they were British subjects, where 
they received the accustomed wages of seamen ; w^hile at 
this very time the South depended for their very existence 
upon the labor of tv/o milhons of men, women, and children, 
impressed, yea, enslaved by them, without wages— and said 
slaves were themselves property. Thus w^e went on ; amidst 
the confused din and hideous uproar of these multitudinous 
changes in fifty years occasioned by the systematic disturb- 
ance by the votes of the South of any and every settled 
policy. In this endless fluctuation and change has the South 
robbed the North of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars 
to mamtain her dreadful system, thus taking by fraud the 
labor of the free to make up what the slave could not earn. 
All this has been done to allow no particular branch of busi- 
ness to wear itself a safe channel before the South proposed 
a change. These changes in legislation are southern apolo- 
gies for those enormous unpaid balances due the Xorth, 

11 



ALVAK STEWAET. 

which changes were procured for the sake of the apology, to 
defraud the North, which has been running down the fiight- 
ful precipice of bankruptcy in caravans, in consequence of 
these things. 

The mighty and powerful party newly arrived at the 
palace of power, has reached the same by promising to guard, 
perpetuate, and even strengthen the great walls of slavery, 
while they fortify its outposts. 

This great party has supplanted its rivals in the affections 
of the South. Yet we lament that this powerful party should 
not have reserved even a formal salutation for liberty. — No, 
the cause of liberty must not expect more from this party 
than its predecessor. No, not one fetter will be broken, not 
one tear wiped away from the cheek of the friendless slave. 
We suppose the Whigs will reprint, as a second edition, the 
Democratic programme of northern subserviency to the South, 
of which they once so loudly complained. But we feel assured 
there are thousands and tens of thousands in the Whig party, 
who find themselves there from ancient position, whose hearts 
throb with the most tender desire for universal emancipation, 
who will be soul sickened, when they see their party crouch- 
ing beneath the slave power, swimming with such a ponderous 
millstone about its neck. They will abandon their party, we 
hope, on such painful discovery, and come and join the liberty 
party, never to desert it. 

Look at the perfidy of the treacherous slaveholder, who, 
after tempting Martin Van Buren and his party to forsake 
the great highway of Democratic principles, to " bill and 
coo " in the forbidden and polluted paths of slavery, and now, 
having drawn the Democracy out of sight and hearing of the 
doctrmes of the Declaration of Independence, slavery deserts 
them, and leaves them at the greatest possible remove from 
their own well avowed principles and the great landmarks 
of their professions. 



NATIONAL committee's ADDRESS. 243 

Mr. Van Buren and his friends are not to be pitied ; they 
had no right to barter their principles, their humanity, their 
justice, for poAver possessed or expected, when conferred by 
the slaveholder as the price of political integrity to the slave. 
The Democracy is rightly punished, by the desertion of the 
slaveholder, and a perfect prostration of Mr. Van Buren and 
his party. The case still proclaims, in tones loud as thunder, 
the want of gratitude and the treachery of the slaveholder, 
and shows that whoever leans upon him for support, reclines 
upon a " broken staff, upon whose sharp point hope bleeds 
and expectation dies." 

The South has been so kind to the Democrats as to reheve 
them from standing on guard, to protect the jewels of slavery 
from the depredations of Abolitionists, and have been most 
graciously pleased to permit the Whigs to cover themselves 
with glory in that desperate and honorable service ; supposing 
that rotation in office of such high distinction, would be pecu- 
liarly desirable in this ambitious age ; (and who could so 
nicely adjust with propriety to the honorable ambition of 
our times, those delightful duties which must be performed 
from one end of Mason and Dixon's line to another, in Congress 
and out, with such peculiar judgment and taste as good, pious, 
patriarchal Democratic slaveholders) ? The highest post of 
slaveholding elevation will be conferred in all suitable times 
and modes as befit so distinguished a service, on the most 
reckless defamers of Abolition, the equal rights of men, and 
the Declaration of Independence. The slaveholders will now 
be able to judge, which of the two great parties can discharge 
the laborious duty of traducing the slave and the slave's 
friend with the greatest skill ; which of the two parties can 
produce the ablest argument showing that the colored man 
is nothing but a connecting link between a man and a monkey, 
the ablest essay proving that a black man has no soul, and a 
mulatto has but half of one, and a man whose blood is three 



244 ALVAN STEWART. 

quarters of African descent has but a quarter. Also, an 
ably-written essay will be expected, to show that a colored 
man ought not to learn to read or write ', another book show- 
ing that the slave's mind and memory is so retentive that he 
does not need a Bible, hymns or psalms^ in books, as he will 
be able to remember all he hears read or said by others, in 
the way of " oral mstruction." Another book will be required, 
showing that the southern slave is happier than the northern 
laborer. Another work, in 2 vols., 8vo., showing that slavery 
is a happier state than liberty, if a man has food to eat when 
well, and physic to take when sick. Another constitutional 
argument showing that freemen in the free States have no 
business to petition for the abohtion of slavery in the District 
of Columbia, or anywhere else; the second volume should be 
a luminous argument supported by authorities drawn from 
history, the laws of nations, and Confucius, that a man had 
better mind his own business, and let other people's alone. 
Another powerful book, entitled, " The Authority of Mobs 
Vindicated to put down Abohtion ;" finally, there should be 
a work written, showing the propriety of what exists, and 
why a man south of Mason and Dixon's line should have double 
the amount of political power of one north of the line, or why 
450,000 men south of the hne should have as many electors 
of President as 1,000,000 north of that Hne. To which add 
a short-hand catechism for vulgar slaveholders, by which they 
may swear Abolition down, by firing their oaths at it, as at a 
mark. 

But the Democracy of this country have been taught a 
bitter, but instructive lesson. They should not have sold 
Joseph into Egypt for a mess of Presidential pottage. The 
AboUtionists have been endeavoring to reduce Democratic 
abstractions into substantial realities. We invite every Demo- 
crat in the land to aid us in reducing their beautiful theories 
to practice. We believe every innocent man upon earth has 



NATIONAL committee's ADDRESS. 245 

the best right to himself, his wife, his cliildren, his earnings, 
his labor, his liberty and life, and do not Democrats believe 
the same ? This is Abolition ; and is not this Democracy ? 
Democrats profess to be anti-monopolists ; M'liat monopoly so 
great as for 250,000 slaveholders to monopolize the labor of 
3,000,000 of people, without compensation? 

May our merciful Father forgive our erring brothers, Avho 
have gone as they say, " for this once," and voted against the 
poor slave, for a Tyler or a Johnson. May they be forgiven 
by Him who treasures up in everlasting remembrance the 
sorrowful groans of the slave mother, as she, on the day 
they voted for a slaveholder, listened to the piteous cry of 
her first-born, beaten by the fierceness of avarice, the cruelty 
of lust, the unfeelingness of a slave-master. That inarticulate 
sorrow of a bleeding hea^-t is transferred to that great inefiace- 
able record which will be read and published from the centre 
of eternity. Oh ! forgive all who have voted that this 
mother's groans and her child's cry shall yet for four years 
more ascend from this blood-stained and tear-watered land, 
that a Tyler may rule. May the brother Avho has prayed 
Avith us, worked Avith us, sufiered with us, petitioned Con- 
gress for aid and God for help, come back and vote with us. 
Brother ! do not give that slaveholder more power to smite 
God's guiltless poor ! Come back, brothers, and go with us, 
and we will love you. Come back from the hlood-huhhling 
feast of the cruel I Come with those who will embrace yon 
and do right. If you will go into this glorious army, raising 
for our enslaved brothers, you have a commission sealed with 
the blood of Christ, ready to be dehvered to you. No self- 
denying and benevolent labor for the slave shall be unre- 
warded by Him, for even a cup of cold water given to His 
representatives, for His sake, shall not be forgotten. Blessed 
is he that considereth the poor. The Lord shall deliver him 
in time of trouble. 



246 ALVAN STEWABT. 

Come, Brothers, let us haste to the glorious rescue of the 
Declaration of Independence, of our holy religion, our Bibles, 
and three millions of fellow men in bondage. For if slavery 
is upheld it must be by a perverted Bible, and a false religion, 
and by some unknown God, "whose attributes are rage, 
revenge, and lust." To suppose, as the majority of the 
southern clergy do, that this hell-concocted villainy is a Bible 
institution, approved of by the God of heaven and earth, 
would in twenty years, if believed, drive all Christendom into 
the arms of blank atheism, frightful nothingness, eternal 
sleep, endless chance, which would be infinitely more con- 
sistent than a slavery-approving God. Such is not our 
God, who loves all his children, and did not confer power 
on one to maltreat the other by making him his slave. Come 
brothers, with your hearts filled with courage and love to 
man, and help us fight for hated truth, abused truth, despised 
truth. A lie cannot last forever. Slavery is the greatest lie 
in the universe of God. It is unalloyed wickedness. It 
embraces every crime which may be committed against man 
or his Maker. It is the fittest emblem of hell that can be 
found on the earth. 

Never did the East foretell brighter signs of coming day. 
The seven years of persecution are ended. The nation is 
about to arise and deliver. We are on the eve of a great 
victory over Gog and Magog. Bone is hastening to its bone. 
Slavery must die. It is doomed. The roaring shout of glad- 
dened nations will ascend, as broadside after broadside of the 
walls of slavery come thundering to the ground. 

Is not the day at hand, when the apocalyptic Babylon's 
overthrow may be applied to American slavery. "And I 
heard another voice in heaven, saying come out of her, my 
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive 
not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, 
and God hath remembered her iniquities. And the kings of 



247 

the earth who have coiTimitted fornication, and lived deli- 
ciously with her, shall bewail her and lament for her, when 
they shall see the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for 
the fear of her torment, saying, Alas ! alas ! that great city, 
Babylon, that mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment 
come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn 
over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more ; 
the merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones, and 
of pearls, and fine hnen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and 
cinnamon, and odors, and ointment, and frankincense, and 
wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, 
and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men." 



LETTEE TO SAMUEL WEBB, ESQ. 

loth October, 1842. 

Dear Brother : I cannot but regi-et that such a space of 
time has gone by smce I held communion with your spirit, 
so aUve to every great and good thing. But I have been a 
bird of passage from one part of the anti-slavery hemisphere 
to another. I have never so entirely consecrated myself to 
the slave as I have done this year. I have been instant in 
season and out of season ; I cannot tell you that my progress 
has been equal to my sanguine wishes. The times have been 
put so horribly out of joint by slavery ; money is so uncom- 
monly scarce that our agents in the cause could scarcely keep 
their noses out of water, and have lain at the edge of the 
water in a sort of snorting and strangling state, and I would 
be obliged to pass to their part of the country and pump the 
water out of them, and lay on warm clothes, and beg for a 
sort of mineral air to inflate their lungs with, and then they 
would rise and run again as though nothing had happened to 
them. 

Slavery has undone us. She has crawled into the Consti- 
tution ; has paralyzed the Church ; broken the compact ; 
silenced petition ; overthrown morality ; blotted out human- 
ity ; really dissolved the Confederacy, and left the nation 
undone. I have attended a vast number of conventions this 
summer all over the land, and placed in all its astounding 
forms the modes by Avhich slave labor manifests its malignity 
to free labor ; by which the Clay and Calhoun Compromise 
Act has alone Avrung and crushed out of existence one thou- 
sand millions of dollars in the Xorth, and reduced us to a 
position of misery from which twenty years of unbroken pros- 

248 



LETTER TO SAMUEL WEBB. 249 

perity could not lift us up to that summit-level Ave occupied 
in 1833. The people approvingly admit that all I say is true, 
and admit tliat we only perpetuate our wretchedness and 
misery by electing either of these slaveholders, Clay and 
Calhoun, to the Presidency ; men who, by being fathers of 
the Compromise Act of 1833, thereby thrust their bowie- 
knives into the national heart from opposite sides, where 
they met and stnick fire in the conflict of opposition, until 
the points of their blades each pricked through from opposite 
sides, and for that act, each claims the Presidency, and 
each is equally entitled to rule a slave-loving and a slave- 
ridden people. I say men will listen and hear the proofs I 
bring that these two men are the great destroyers of their 
country's glory and happiness. Yes, and men will admit it 
is all so, and then go away and join their parties' shout for 
the one, or hurrah for the other ! What destiny awaits this 
wicked land ! I solemnly believe there is more positive 
crime committed against God in wronging man, in this Re- 
public every day, than in the sixteen governments of conti- 
nental Europe, with their two hundred and twenty-four mil- 
lions of inhabitants. If the sun went around the earth as the 
ancients supposed, I think he would pause with amazement 
in his diurnal career over Brazil^ Cuhci^ and the United 
States. But I mean to do what I can, in my little day and 
generation, to crush this great monster, though I confess I 
tremble for my country. Our election is the 8th of Novem- 
ber, I hope we may gain some over last year. If we could 
go as high as seven thousand votes, I confess I should feel 
we had done nobly. But I fear we shall not, though I have 
worked so hard. 

Allow me to hear from you soon, and believe me as ever, 
your assured friend. 



11* 



LETTEK TO DK. BAILEY. 

April, 1S42. 

Dk. Bailey, Editor of the " Philanthkopist :" 

Sir : Pardon the freedom of a stranger, in bringing be- 
fore you the sentiments of a cooperative in the great field of 
human rights. Perhaps by comparing opinions more fre- 
quently, on the subject of American slavery and its remedy, 
we may find that those who are separated by many degrees 
of latitude and longitude, may view this great crime and its 
cure not essentially unlike. That which is the oftenest con- 
sidered, will be the best understood, and what is intended to 
be embraced in the great issue now makmg up between 
liberty and slavery, is a question in which the character of 
this nation is deeply involved, and on which the happiness of 
tens of thousands and the freedom of millions may depend ; 
and must be one always claiming and summoning to its con- 
sideration, the most patriotic and far-seeing of her sons. If 
this communication should be the means of your placing your 
views before the world on the momentous question alluded to 
by me, one of the greatest objects of this letter will have been 
accomplished. 

The work of the Revolution was fairly staked out, em- 
bracing the political freedom of the colonies — the personal 
liberty of each one — in the immortal Declaration of Inde- 
pendence :— but that great work was but half completed. 

The great Declaration is a summary of colonial and personal 
injustice. The sword in seven years cut loose the colonies 
from their bondage. The dismemberment was ratified. Our 
country took her seat at the council board of nations. The 

250 



LETTEIi TO DK. BAILEY. 251 

young Sovereignty limped up into the temple of nations, ^vith 
the Declaration of Independence spread, in her right hand, 
with a whip and fetter in her left, folloAved by a slave, while 
the blush mantled on her cheek, and revealed the struggles 
of her shame; and what she lacked in the sincerity of hitent, 
she contrived to countervail by a certain impudence of pre- 
tence — and what she lost by force of position, she would fain 
make up, by the ingenuity of her abstractions. Theoretically, 
the relation of slave and master, king and people, was dis- 
solved. The Declaration of Independence struck up, and the 
hand of the king fell off; it struck down, and the hand of 
the master was unclenched. Slavery since then has been 
constitutional man-steahng and legal kidnapping; slavery, 
though once laid out for interment, was not buried, but was 
in fact, an ill-omened resuscitation of a fungus on the body 
politic and was strapped and bandaged up with the other 
sores of the Revolution, and instead of excision, it now claims 
the dignity of being a " peculiar institution," whose increas- 
ing weight makes the body politic, by which it is nursed, reel 
and stagger under its ponderous load. The past year has 
given some encouraging premonitory symptoms of that final 
and frightful collapse of a system of crime, which has battened 
on the tears and blood of men, from century to century. 

Great injustice will not last forever. Accumulated sorrows 
of swelling hearts, will burst out somewhere. In a single morn- 
ing of August, 1831, eighty-four disembodied spirits were 
summoned from the Southampton massacre, to stand before 
the Eternal, as witnesses of justice long denied, and hope 
crushed in the bosom of the slave. Were the green earth of 
this nation carpeted with Decalogues beaming with celestial 
light from every word ; were the blue heavens of this land 
curtained with aphorisms of eternal truth, and the leaf of 
every tree in the forest, or thefield, instinct with declarations 
of the equality and universal liberty conferred by God on 



252 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

man, still one guiltless slave held as a chattel, by the law, wonld 
give the lie direct, to this festooned and emblazoned hypoc- 
risy of high sounding moral assertion. The abstractions of 
this nation are divine ethics, but the practice iniquity's rules 
of action. It seems to be thought important that a man's 
abstract behef be -right ; then his practice is his own affair, 
for which he is not accountable. 

It is difficult to define the position of a nation whose 
morality terminates in the orthodoxy of its abstractions. No 
nation in which the religion of Moses and Christ prevails, was 
ever rich enough to perform its labor by slaves. Slavery 
will cost a nation its self-respect, also the loss of the labor of 
those who rely on slavery for support, also the loss of the 
poor freeman's labor, who will not work where labor is dis- 
graced as the business of slaves. Slavery will bankrupt its 
community every ten years, because slavery will not and can- 
not do enough to maintain a community, where the majority 
are idle. The deficit which slavery does not supply, must be 
purloined by stealthy credit, and paid in repudiation and 
bankruptcy. Slavery blots out the line between mzVie and 
thme^ and elevates the greatest crime into a " peculiar insti- 
tution." 

The commerce of such a country is quickened into life by 
the whip ; the groans of fathers, the tears of mothers, are the 
indications of its progress. 

The cracking lash from twice ten thousand cotton-fields, is 
the mournful music of their progress from day to day, to life's 
end. The slaveholder cramps the immortal powers of his 
slave, to make the animal portion more available. I repeat, 
no nation is rich enough to use immortal man as property. 
He is too valuable for the base purposes to which he is 
applied. What farmer could prosperously till his cornfield 
with a golden plough, with handles of orient pearl ? It may be 
asked, if slavery expired on the 4th of July, 177C, how has 



LErrEK TO DK. BAILEY. i553 

it come down to us, with so much brass on its front, clahning 
the assistance of the Constitution as its great patron ? The 
answer is, there was no days-man, no saviour, no Granville 
Sharpe, to stand iip between the oppressor with power and 
the helpless oppressed. Had God seen fit to have raised a 
Sharpe to have proclaimed that slaves could not breathe in 
these United States, the first moment they touched our soil, the 
abiding electricity of the great Declaration might have melted 
their chains ; there was a divinity in its language, and a force 
in its terms, that casuistry could not resist or robbery pre- 
vent. 

Lord Mansfield, w^ho, for more than 30 years, ruled the 
judicial mind of Westminster Hall, by the supremacy of his 
own, twice in the King's Bench, on solemn argument, pro- 
nounced slavery a part of the law of England. But the great 
Granville Sharpe consecrated himself to the noble work of 
exploring the deepest spring of EngUsh hberty, the waters of 
whose fountain when by Sharpe presented to this same court, 
Lord Mansfield declared to be the true nectar of English 
liberty, and from that day henceforth forever, no slave could 
breathe who had placed his feet on the soil of beetle-cliifed 
England. That was the eau de vie, the water of life ; and 
Somerset's case will be regarded to the world's end, as the 
re-discovery of the long- lost spring of English liberty. If we 
had had a Sharpe to have taken a slave, on a writ of habeas 
corpus, before the first Chief Justice Jay of the Supreme 
Court of the United States in 1789 or 1790, while the great 
truths were yei in the memory of men, while gratitude to 
God was felt for the white man's deliverance from a foreign 
yoke, before the cotton gin — the black man's curse — was 
invented, who can tell but what the slave might have been 
proclaimed free ! 

But alas ! the claimants of human flesh were constitution- 
makers, law-givers, law-interpreters, and law-executioners. 



254 ALVAN STEWAKT. 

Construction and definition came mainly, from those inte- 
rested to perpetuate a crime, as disastrous, in the end, to 
themselves and their posterity, as to the victims of this 
aggravated villainy. Slavery has eaten out the very soul of 
words, and every intendment raised, in behalf of liberty, and 
every presumption raised against cruelty and injustice is 
broken down, by violent construction, shamefully at war with 
the benignity of the common law. The common law pre- 
sumes all men free, till the contrary appears, without regard 
to color. Slavery presumes a colored man a slave, until he 
proves himself free. I solemnly beheve if the Constitution 
were to be interpreted by the judges of Westminster Hall, 
slavery would cease in a single day in the District of Colum- 
bia ; and it would be told, it could not derive a single power 
to hold a colored man by virtue of that instrument. 

Has there ever been a judge at Washington, who delivered 
a judicial opinion, in which the rights of the slave were 
involved, but came to the consideration of the question, 
under the horrible weight of injustice, so deep, that the 
loftiest intellect might flag and falter, by the debasement of 
its employment, which instead of weighing out the^jjstice of 
Heaven, is basely employed in lending its sanction to the 
clutchings of robbery, the greediness of injustice, and the 
baseness of avarice. Look at the pompous prowling white 
man, and the poor powerless black one, contesting their 
rights in a slaveholding forum ! Could the black man have 
summoned as much influence and j)ower as the white, and 
employed able counsel to vindicate his rights, what glorious 
triumphs would truth and liberty have made over falsehood 
and tyranny ; the world would have rung with the grandest 
eflbrts of mind Avhich had ever arrested the attention of man- 
kind, from the time of Demosthenes to the days of Cicero ; 
from Paul to Luther, or from Bacon and Raleigh to Edmund 
Burke and Patrick Henry. 



LETTER TO T>li. BAILEY. 255 

But no, the colored man's oath coukl never be heard in the 
Sanctuary of Justice, for wrong done him by one of the 
Caucasian race. He was poor, he could employ no counsel 
to aid by strong arguments to drive deep the stakes of 
liberty. In the last half century, there have been wrongs 
enough inflicted by the white upon the colored race, to have 
kept all the courts of the civilized world well employed, in 
administering and weighing out natural justice to these 
injured ones. 

We therefore, as Abohtionists, should never make a single 
admission, in relation to the construction of our Constitution, 
which might tell against the slave. It is craven to admit any- 
thing against the colored man, in favor of piratical legislation. 
Every act, organic or legislative, morally, so far as it bears 
on the slave, is clearly null and void in the court of con- 
science, it being made to fake rights from him, without his 
consent, and which natural justice would declare wrong. It 
is ethically wrong to admit that the slaveholder has one right, 
however acquired, when that right is carved out of the natu- 
ral ones of the slave, no matter how strongly the slaveholder's 
right m^y. be upheld by a covenant or league on the 2:)art of 
the free States. For neither the slave or free States had any 
moral jurisdiction over the African, to reduce the quantum 
of his political and personal rights, below the average of the 
great community. But when we point to the Constitution or 
laws of the Union or States, as evidence of rights secured to 
the master, to the disparagement of the slave, whose whole 
life, and that of his race, have been a continued protest 
against and dissent therefrom, our act is morally preposterous 
in the extreme. 

No doubt many tender consciences suppose there is some- 
thing perversely radical in the above proposition, and that 
such doctrine is dangerously immoral ; and these persons 
seem, although subject to an aboHtion influence, anxious to 



256 ALVAX STXWART. 

atone for their small spice of a)x>Iition, hy asserting the vali- 
dity of the ma-ster's claim, whatever it may Im», when propped 
by ron««litutions, lo-^idation, or ju'i s. Thi^i look^ 

too mu«')» li'vi- ].i't ' -1^ Ii''.i r-il 1 r,..»),..r »i, -.»,•- 

honse. 

The cri'Uii'i 1 Uik«*, in, tiial ail nlaw la%ri» Ik'hiij made in 
derotjation of all riijht, human or divine, and hy the rohher 
against the rohbe<l, of ihe stront; airainn the weak, and x^'wh- 
ou! or conwnt expre*a or implie<l, on the par' 

ol'li.4 I for the entire profit and advanta^o of th- 

nuwter, and to the never-^ndin^ injury of the slave, thrn'for- 
it seems to me, that the factM here aAsumed as ent4*rini; into 
any law to uphold slaverj-, directly or remote, are of them 
■elves evidence of the most stufM^nflotm fraud which can )>< 
committe<l through the in«trt v of one class of met 

upon another. Then w© may r. .. , i.. ihe civil law, the law ci 
nations the comm(»n Uw ; and it is th© unbroken current or 
authority of all these lams that/mW avoids all contracts and 

all p' ' » >wevcr W' ' _...:.. i .. .. i .. ,. ^f 

the ; and « pro- 

cured iiy frauds are all null and void, however hiph the 
authenticatitm of their solemnities. T* • ' ♦. 

ten laws come to its sup|»nrt, is a 

as clearly as though in the preamble to the Uw it waa to 
recite, that •* Whereas, it in r ' • * '' ' '.the 

weak, the i>om-erful to deprive % .. And 

appropriate them and their posterity to their own me ; and 
whereas mor'* - ' ' . * »» . • 

l'Xpl«Nbs| tr«.: 

who by night or day, or by the m»>st fla^tious fraud can 

circumvent this f " * ^ ' " ' ! to the • 

his knavery; th« if A is 

than H, he has a Utter right to B's body than B has to him- 

self; if A by fraud, stratagem, or force can rioUte B's natnnl 



LETTER TO DK. BAILEY. 257 

right, that Ls to be taken as eviJence that B was not made 
for himself, but for his stronger neighbor's use." 

Again, is it not the essence of absurdity, for us to contend 
that the constituted powers of this nation are constitutionally 
capable of being employed to uphold slavery, but these same 
constituted authorities are constitutionally poweriess to do 
justice to the slave, and restore him to his liberty ? 

U 1 never sliould admit that we are under a moral obli"-a- 
tiun U) do wrong, and have therefore no legal power to do 
right. ^lauj are in haste to admit we have conspired by 
compact against the liberties of the colored man, and that 
morality requires we should l>e pertinaciously and wickedly 
cunaifttent in carrying out the original knavery of our contract, 
to erujih forever the rights of two and a half millions of men, 
and that we exhausted our yowvT to do good, in the great 
evil we untbrtook to perform ; therefore, if indeed we desired 
now to do riglit, wo have no power ; or at any rate, morality 
demands we should be villains, because we so agreed^ rather 
than become just and honest men, at the expense of 
breaking a murderous covenant. We have thrust the inno- 
cent man inlt> the dungeon, but have no j>o\ver, say some, to 
litt him out. Our con?»lilutional power being exercised to 
deulroy the rights of man, is a spent poicer^ and when a sense 
of our crime appears to us, and we W(iuld desire to redress 
the wrong we have done, some tell us, alas ! we have no space 
for reiH-ntance, because we are constitutionally moral bank- 
rupts. Every admission made of constitutional inability to 
redress any and every act of injustice, direct or remote, 
aflecling tl»e liberties of any <>f our countrymen, touchmg 
any point wherein we have heretofore wronged them, is as 
cowardly as it is untrue. It has, however, often been done to 
propitiate slaveliolding and pro-slavery w rath ; but we have 
always lost in Pelf-respect, more than we have gained, by our 
pusilhinimity. It is wrong to make merchandise of even a 



258 ALVAN STEWART. 

legal opinion which goes to confirm the conquests of the 
bucaneer. The proposition cannot be doubted that we have 
power to take back everything wrong in the Constitution or 
law, to which we or our fathers have lent their sanction, 
affecting the rights of colored men. We can abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia and between the slave States, 
because these two kinds of slavery derive their power from 
the Constitution, whether rightfully or wrongfully I will not 
stop to inquire. The fugitive slave act of 1793, by which 
the free States have become the hunter's great forest of 
human game, can be abolished by Congress. The internal 
slave trade, and the act of 1793, abolished, slavery could not 
stand five years. Then there is the war power of Congress, 
the treaty power, and the guaranty in the Constitution of a 
republican form of government to each State ; who dare 
affirm or deny that some of these powers maybe equal to the 
abolition of slavery in all of the States ? 

Without pausing to reason for a moment, on any of 
these remedies, I may be permitted to say no reasonable 
Abolitionist should ever suffer his mind to be perplexed for 
a moment with the notion that we have not power to undo 
all the wrong which we have inflicted on the slave. The bare 
discharge of the free States in money and men from all obli- 
gation to aid in suppressing slave insurrections and to deliver 
up fugitives, would compel the South to manumit for their 
own safety. The South, were they to rely on themselves for 
protection from insurrection, would be compelled to dot its 
whole territory with forts; not less than 2,000 would be 
required, to protect the women and children. The forts 
required, at $20,000 each would be $40,000,000, and the 
munitions, arms, etc., to furnish in a small degree each fort, 
could not be less than $10,000 each, or $20,000,000 more, 
which added to the cost of forts would amount to $60,000,000 
— strange mode of extorting labor in the nineteenth century ! 



LETTER TO DR. BAILEY. 359 

Secretary UiDshur refers to this mode of dcfoncliiig the South 
in his late report. If the forts were built, the slaves would 
find them as good points to rally for insurrection, as tlie 
master for protection. 

Again, the great staple of the South, cotton, has found a 
competition in the British East Indies, where enough pro- 
bably w411 be grown in a few years to supply the necessities 
of men, at about half the price at which cotton has heretofore 
been sold. To enable the southern planter with his reckless 
mode of conducting his affairs, to compete successfully 
against the cheap free labor of India, would require cotton- 
gin and slaves to be given to him, as a governmental bounty, 
or donation, in the start. 

The first streak of light wliich appeared after the Revolu- 
tion was a lurid one, shot forth some twenty-six years since ; 
and men have disputed from that time to this, whether it 
was a prismatic ray of the ascendmg glories of the sun of 
liberty, or whether it was not a false light flung up from 
the pent fires of slavery. It is called the Colonization So- 
ciety. A few good men in the North had a hazy, indistinct 
idea of the immeasurable wrongs of slavery, and could find 
no measures for its redress, except expatriation beyond the 
Atlantic, of those freedmen, who had once been its victims. 
The North thought they saw in this society the colored man 
elevated on the other side of the globe, and the slaveholders 
saw something more congenial ; they saw the freedman, by 
them hated, because he was free, cut off from all sympathy 
with the slave, no more to be the bondman's eyes and feet, 
the slave made safe, his value increased, his escape impos- 
sible. This society was a strange confusion of benevolence 
and fraud, of northern indefiniteness and southern avarice, 
glossed with good intentions, controlled by southern saga- 
city, as heartless as it was specifically selfish, believing in the 



260 ALVAN STEWART. 

safety-valve for troubled consciences, and a sure way to make 
slavery valuable and perpetual. 

About this time, or shortly after, the slaves, it is supposed, 
organized two distinct missions, one the free State, and the 
other the Canada mission. The object of these missions 
appears to have been to send off slaves to liberty. These 
societies, without funds or agents, or the countenance of a 
single member of Congress, or a doctor of divinity (but the 
whole constituted authorities of this country, by sea and 
land, armed against them), have done a very spirited and 
successful business {although' the slave trade is forbidden) y 
the society deals in nothing but slaves, and has sent away to 
these missions five persons, where the Colonization Society 
has sent one to Africa. The Colonization Society seems to 
be a sponge, to absorb the unregarded and floating sym- 
pathy, which men feel, to do something to wash out the vile- 
ness of slavery. When men cease to delude themselves with 
the folly that the expatriation of a few thousand freedmen, is 
the same as the emancipation of two and a half millions of 
slaves, then^ and not till then., will the Colonization Society 
be powerless, for the purpose of mischief. 

Long continued injustice done to man, must burst up some- 
where, sooner or later. Witness the Southampton massacre. 
Slavery did it. Slave insurrections on sea or land with mur- 
der, is a part of the shocking system. In 1832, a few northern 
noble spirits, deeply pitying the condition of the slave, and per- 
ceiving the hopelessness of colonization, determined that the 
only remedy for slavery was unconditional emancipation. And 
in the last ten years there has been performed an amount of 
labor by the Anti-Slavery Reformers, without a parallel in 
any of the past ages of benevolence in the world. 

Both of the great parties who contended for the mastery 
of the Republic hoped to flatter the South by a base and pro- 



LETTER TO DR. BAILEY. 2G1 

found acknowledgment of various Constitutional compacts 
implie.3, upholding slavery, which never existed, and by 
abusing Abolitionists without stint or measure— this was the 
competition between these great parties, who from that day 
to this have poured from a thousand presses concocted and 
deliberate falsehoods, to bereave the friends of man of their 
characters for humanity, sense, patriotism, and every quality 
which can elevate or ennoble. These parties have set mob- 
ferociousness upon us, demolished private buildings, destroyed 
the sanctuaries of the living God, and devoted to the flames 
the most beautiful temple ever erected to Liberty on this 
continent ; they laid their Vandal hands upon printing presses 
and destroyed them ; and above all, they inflicted dreadful 
scourging upon our most worthy men ; they levied fines con- 
trary to law on some, imprisoned others, and finally murdered 
Lovejoy, the mart}T. 

We were compelled, poor and sparse as we were, to erect 
and maintam presses, papers, and publish books, pamphlets, 
reviews, magazines, and in fact to create in self-defence, and 
that of the rights of our race, a literature of our own, in 
which to embalm the sorrows of insulted men. We havo 
been refused the columns of papers to refute the vilest calum- 
nies which those same papers had originated or circulated. 
The public mind w^as so far misled, as to the objects of Aboli- 
tionists, as to believe slaveholders to be the innocent victims 
of position, and that Abolitionists were justly deprived of 
trials by jury, as monsters too great to be entitled to any- 
thing but the headlong vengeance of lynch law. 

The Abolitionists of the United States, on bended knees, 
besought the great denominational divisions of the church to 
throw open the doors of their churches, and view the poor 
slave as the representative of their ascended Redeemer. 
This great honor we tendered them in the imploring bowels 
of compassion, and in every form of entreaty, argument and 



262 ALT AN STEWART. 

remonstrance. These churches have been besought to tell their 
brethren of the same sect or connection in the South, that 
slavery was a sin against God, a crime against man ; and to let 
the oppressed go free. But these churches refused to admo- 
nish and do the glorious work, and preferred union in miquity 
to schism for the love of God and man. Had the church, as 
her character imports, opened her arms for the pleading and 
bleeding slave, long ere this, it is believed, the work of eman- 
cipation would have been complete ; and political action by 
a liberty party rendered unnecessary. But she declined the 
Heaven-descended honor ; she refused in most cases to hear a 
message from him just ready to perish, or give notice of the 
meetings in which to listen to the tales of his long unheeded 
sorrows. 

We then besought the authorities of our national capitol 
with uncounted petitions asking Congress to exercise the 
constitutional power it possessed to break the slave's yoke. 
When the frank and fearless petition of the slave's friend was 
read in Congress, the slaveholding representatives sent up a 
shriek which pierced the capitol dome, and for about the 
space of two hours, they cried out " Great is Diana of the 
Ephesians !" 

Two hours did I say ? Have they not so cried from that day 
to this, in behalf of slavery ? Have they not walked over the 
prostrate Constitution of their country? Have they not, 
unread, unprinted, unreferred and unconsidered, sent petitions 
signed by more than two millions of our citizens to the Con- 
gressional sepulchre? Have not the most solemn appeals, 
for the last eight years, praying the emancipation of thousands 
of our native-born citizens from slavery the most awful, been 
treated with an indignity surpassed only by a fanaticism 
which could break down the barriers of the Constitution to 
strike down the imploring slave ; in the first moment of his 
trembling hope, when the first ray of light fell upon his 



LETTER TO DK. BAILEY. 268 

chains, it was to be extinguished by a darkness which cast 
its common shadow over the Anglo-Saxon's constitutional 
hope, and the poor African's only expectation. 

But this entombment of a nation's recorded philanthropy 
is not a final rest ; it shall have a resurrection with the flush 
of injured immortality on its cheek, defying her assassins ; 
and shall publish the glory of her redemption, where there is 
a slave to be set free, or a freeman to rejoice. 

We have appealed to the church, and she has declined the 
honor. We appealed to Congress, and she threw us back 
our petitions, mixed with the broken fragments of the Con- 
stitution. We have appealed to the slaveholder ; he points to 
the fagot and the flames. What shall we do ? 

The nation is about to become all slaves or freemen 
together. The thirteen slave States have found slavery too 
expensive a mode of existence without practising, at least de- 
cennially, on mankind, that robbery, through bankruptcy and 
repudiation, which they continually inflict upon their slaves. 
These slave States are insolvent ; showing their deformity 
abroad, and revealing their nakedness at home. 

They have struck down by tariflT legislation that prosperity 
in the North, which they had neither the power to imitate, 
nor the firmness to pursue. 

The North, by its wretched alliance, through its Siamese 
ligature, walks with a feeble step ; as it carries helplessness 
along, it is itself borne to the same miserable end. 

The nation is rushing upon the crisis of her destiny with a 
momentum augmenting the velocity of her speed, proportioned 
to the increasing light of her criminality. For already the 
man of Vermont and the citizen of Michigan hear in the sigh of 
the south wind the cry of the South, saying, " Cease to prevent 
my escape ; cease to oppose my insurrections for that liberty 
for which your fathers fought and bled ; cease to provide the 
southern fort and arsenal, by your taxes, to keep us doyna. ; 



264 ALVAN STEWART. 

vote me free; remember me at the ballot-box, where you 
stand one of the sovereigns of this empire of slaves ; you 
have the power — God give you the will !" 

Congress, by means of slaveholding bullies, has lost its cha- 
racter as a deliberative body ; it is the national bear-garden ; 
a more licentious body than the French Constituent Assembly 
when torn by Girondist and Mountain factions ; for those 
murdered their sovereign; these, our Constitution and the 
nation's character. 

Slavery has ruled this land. The robbed Cherokee has 
been driven from the council-fires and graves of his fore- 
fathers, by the slaveholding bayonet, to find a new home in 
the land of the setting sun, and leaves behind, the legacy of a 
wronged and ruined people's curse ; and as band after band 
of the brave Seminoles are forced from their everglades to 
the solitudes of the distant "West, we may well fear the 
seven last plagues of the Apocalypse will be poured upon us, 
for the wrongs committed against them^ and the slaves of this 
land. 

We have tried the inapplicable system of questioning the 
political candidates in this land ; hoping by that lever to pry 
open the prison doors. 

A new kind of political literature sprung up in the North, 
in which the Jesuits w^ere fairly distanced, in their own cele- 
brated art ; the catechism of humanity was answered by the 
political catechumens in such mode as *' to keep the word of 
promise to the ear, and break it to the hope.'' 

There was as much honest complaint against the askers of 
questions as the answerers. Bad faith was the result on the 
part of the voter and voted — crimination and recrimination 
had brought us to the border of ruin. We were determined 
for a while, that the Whig and Democratic parties should 
perform this exalted work of humanity, and we seemed to 
think, by a sort of political expediency in barter, that the 



LETTER TO DR. BATLEY. 265 

anxiety felt for our votes, by the candidates nominated by 
those parties, would revolutionize their sentiments, and make 
them sincere advocates of the rights of the slave. We never, 
by this course, gained truth an advocate, or humanity a 
friend. Ten candidates either before or after the election 
apologized for any seeming abolition tendencies in their moral 
framework, or by force of position, to one^ who has avowed 
his fidelity to our principles. 

The truth has been, both parties have been so corrupt as 
to employ all their ingenuity to fix on their adversary the 
stigma of upholding abolition ; while each sought to wipe out 
the blot of humanity^ by some bold impudent blow, struck 
full in the face of Liberty, as an atonement for the suspicion 
of being just. The efiect at last was that a genuine Aboli- 
tionist of either of these parties, could not be nominated for a 
law-making trust, but was put under the ban of proscrij^tion. 
And when a man was nominated, who by any accident bore 
the proscribed cognomen of Abolitionist, he was found almost 
imiformly to be a man, who from the futileness of his powers, 
could render our cause no service, and would, if a man of 
some talent, always as between . abolition and party, in a 
pincTi^ go for party and sacrifice the slave, at the very 
moment his strength was most wanted; these men, when 
nominated, were stool-pigeons to catch our votes. But 
did such a Whig candidate inspire confidence enough in a 
Democratic Abolitionist to obtain his vote ; or vice versa, 
in a Whig Abolition voter, if the candidate were Democratic ? 
So nothing but harm was gained. We boxed the compass 
of expedients. The Church, Congress, the candidates, were 
all broken reeds. We had made the experiment complete ; 
and had set down satisfied that we could not bribe men to do 
right, for the hope of gaining or fear of losing our votes. 

This brought the Abolitionists to a solemn pause. They 
looked all around the horizon for help; they saw Liberty 

12 



266 ALVAN STEWART. 

everywhere in the dust ; the moral and pecuniary resources 
of the nation evaporating ; the Repubhc, through its great 
parties and denominations, with her literature both in Church 
and State, bowing down before the great monster slavery. 
What should be down ? Was this god-hke enterprise to be 
abandoned in despair ? Must the avenging sword, the mid- 
night flame, the forlorn shriek of despair, be the only remedy 
for this crime. 

God forbid, that the fair plains of the South should be 
delivered over to the vandaUsm of such a terrible necessity. 
We found on review, that heretofore we ourselves had voted 
for President and members of Congress who had refused to 
lift an ounce of the weight that crushed the slave ; yea, more, 
voted to contimie the fetters ooi^ and, in fact, were the body- 
guard of slavery. 

By a little reflection we saw ourselves through the ballot- 
box forbidding the slaves deUverance, and refusing the repeal 
of a single law, by which he was bound. 

In looking this question over in its amazing breadth, we, 
in the fear of God determined to discharge our own duty, 
without any relation to measures of subtle contrivance, or of 
expediency ; and if we did our individual duty, on others 
than ourselves must be fixed the sin of the continuance of 
slavery. 

We are born under a selfocracy, and came from our 
Creator with a charter commanding us, at the age of majo- 
rity, as law-makers and as sovereigns, and law-givers, 
standing with these high responsibilities bound upon us, 
commandmg us to do the greatest good to the greatest 
number ; " to love our neighbor as ourselves ;" and " to do 
unto others as we would that others should do imto us." 
This is believed to be one of the highest religious duties we 
can perform in this world. We are bound to select and vote 
for those legislative and executive oflicers, who will employ 



LETTER TO DR. BAILEY. 267 

their best faculties, and all the constitutional power within 
their reach, " to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go 
free." We stand at the ballot-box legislating ; for our repre- 
sentative is but our agent, our servant, the mere reflection of 
our concentrated will. 

Every prayer, argument, speech, gift, or act, this side of 
the ballot-box, is but moral suasion ; if the vote is cast for a 
liberty candidate, then we test and prove the sincerity of the 
prayer ; then we perceive that moral suasion has done its 
Avork. Our j^rayer, argument, or moral suasion, with its in- 
finite appliances, may be likened to a cause in a court of jus- 
tice, the opening, the evidence, the pleadings of the counsel, 
and charge of the judge; this I call moral suasion. But the 
verdict of the jury is like the vote at the ballot-box ; that is 
the great fact, this is the great act of prayer. But the man 
who talks of argument, prayer and moral suasion, and still 
votes for a President, or a member of Congress, who will 
vote the fetters of the slave continued on, that the slave still 
weep for blows inflicted, that he still be deprived of his wife, 
child, Bible, and hope, and will not vote a chain to be taken 
oft', on this voter, prayer and moral suasion have never had a 
controlling efiect, or he would not so vote ; for his agents 
voting this w^ay, or refusing to vote that, is the act of the 
voter as much as the representative's. 

The voter votes in Congress yea or nay through his repre- 
sentative. In voting for a member of Congress, or Presi- 
dent, or a member of the State legislature (who votes for the 
senators in Congress) our acts afiect for weal or woe every 
bondman or freeman in this great country. What other act 
in the even tenor of a common man's life, can equal this ? Is 
it not in his ballot that he demonstrates before God and man 
the piety and purity of the act ? 

Let us look at the anti-slavery and pro-slavery law-givers 
standing at the ballot-box, ready to deposit their votes, for 



ALVAN STEWART. 

President or a member of Congress. The Liberty Party 
man lias on his vote the name of a genuine Abolitionist, as a 
candidate for Congress, and in that name is concentrated his 
whole code of Christian humanity; in that name on that 
ballot is impliedly these words by the voter : " I vote for the 
greatest good of the greatest number ; I vote the Declara- 
tion of Independence a solemn and practical reality ; I vote 
the right of petition be restored ; I vote a slave is a maii 
and not a thing^ and has a better right to his own body, and 
its labor, and to his wife and children than any other person 
on earth ; I vote the slave have his own Bible, and be per- 
mitted to read it and worship God as he sees fit ; I vote that 
his little children be sent to school ; I vote slavery aboHshed 
in the District of Columbia, and in Florida, forthwith; I 
vote the internal slave trade between the States be abolished, 
that the infernal trade be punished as piracy on the high 
seas; I vote for the repeal of the act of February, 1793, 
by which the slaveholder pursues the fugitive slave in the 
free States ; I vote that the Republican form of government 
guaranteed to each State in the Constitution, is one in point 
of form described in the Declaration of Independence, in 
which the government is made for the benefit of the governed ; 
and that all men are created free and equal ; I vote all acts 
of the several State legislatures conflicting with the repub- 
lican form of government aforesaid described, be declared 
null and void, even if it set every slave free as its con- 
sequence ; I vote that if it becomes necessary for the com- 
mon defence of our country under the war power, to take 
the southern chattels, called slaves, and convert them into 
men, and put arms in their hands ; I then vote the same will 
be a constitutional mode of giving them liberty, and to hold 
the converse of this is to declare slavery must be continued, 
and that it is more important than the salvation of this 
nation from a foreign foe, or the integrity of the Union in 



LETTER TO DR. BAILEY. 

case of domestic insurrection ; I vote that either the war 
power or the treaty power, may, in certain contingencies be 
competent sources of power for the abolition of slavery in 
this nation." The vote goes in, and the voter's legislation 
and control over the slave are irrecoverably gone, for two 
years. 

Let us see what is contained in the eye of Reason, in the 
natne of a pro-slavery candidate for Congress. The pro- 
slavery voter stands likewise the legislator of two years, at 
the ballot-box, and on that vote of his in the name of the 
candidate is written, in the eye of experience, these other 
words: "I vote that my candidate for Congress, if elected, 
act with and under the dominion of his party, and if it be 
necessary to preserve the power of our party that in casting 
his votes, he bow down to the slaveholders, then I so vote ; I 
vote the Declaration of Independence is a rhetorical flourish, 
and that all men are not born free and equal ; I vote that 
slavery be continued in the District of Columbia, and the 
internal slave trade be prosecuted ; I vote that a master has a' 
better right to his slave, and to that slave's vnfe and children, 
than the slave has to himself or them ; I vote the slave have 
no Bible ; I vote that the whip, cudgel and fetter be used as 
the master sees fit ; I vote the act of 1 '793 remain unrepealed. 
In fact I vote slavery remain one of the 'institutions of this 
country.' " The vote has goue in, the voter's power is spent, 
and that vote has sent a torpedo shock through the frame of 
the most remote slave, who dips his bucket in the waters 
of the Mexican Gulf, or lifts his hoe on the banks of the 
Perdido. 

How can a man pray and plead 729 days for the slave, and 
on the VSOth day, when he is armed with the power of a 
sovereio-n, when he is about to do an act which has more 
power and efficacy, than all he has said and done for two 
years past, prostitute it and go and vote for the master ? — 



270 ALT AN STEWART. 

vote all he has said and prayed for the slave to be bald 
hypocrisy ? What would the master say to such a voter ? 
" Ah ! well done good and faithful servant, you keep your 
prayers, tears and pleas for the slave, but in the trying 
moment, you give the poioer to me. It is all I ask." If the 
slave were to upbraid an Abolitionist, who had voted for the 
master, or a pro-slavery candidate, would not such a voter 
have to apologize and say, " Oh, slave ! have I not talked, 
plead and given my money, to wake up the public to your 
case, for '729 days, and do you suppose I am also to vote for 
you? No that is too nmcJi: my VSOth day is my own, my 
vote I give to my party, and your master." " But," says 
the slave, "give your 729 days of prayer, moral suasion and 
alms to my master, and only vote for me by casting your 
ballot for an Abolitionist, and I am content." Have we not 
tried these parties long enough ? On the free States rests 
the crime of slavery. There are 1,700,000 law-makers or 
voters in this land, and more than one million of them live 
in the free States. We can elect President, Vice President 
and a majority of the House of Representatives, and 26 
Senators from the free States, who, with the Vice President, 
make a majority of the Senate. Is not the mighty power of 
legislation contained in a vote as applied to this amazing 
question, one which involves all that is vital in Christianity, 
dreadful in the day of everlasting retribution ? Does not 
this voting assume an aspect as sublime as the Christian 
religion can make it, in discharging our duty to our fellow- 
man, whose shackles we can strike off or retain ? We con- 
sider it a most glorious revolution, in our own minds, by 
which we see this law-making or voting to be a duty which 
exceeds in its consequences to our brother man, any other 
act which we can perform, touching the liberty and hopes in 
time and eternity of two and a half millions of our race — a 
duty big with the most important consequences, being for 



LETTER TO DR. BAILEY. 271 

good or evil, the greatest, yes, infinitely the greatest act we 
can perform for or against man in passing through this 
world. 

We have treated voting and pohtics heretofore, as some- 
thing doubtful in morals, but at all events, as a subject on 
which there was no accountability to God. We have acted 
as though voting was a sort of neutral act, in which there 
wa,s neither sin nor holiness, right nor wrong, however done. 
We have acted as though voting was an act performed on a 
neutral territory, where the power of God did not extend 
on the one side for approbation, nor on the otlier for con- 
demnation. The American Ballot has been treated in such a 
way, in the pulpit and out, that a stranger might suppose we 
were political infidels. 

Now, may we not thank God that the anti-slavery cause 
has been the means of opening our eyes to the dignity and 
responsibility of legislating with the fear of Him before our 
eyes. We cannot bind and load our brother with fetters at 
the ballot-box, and be less guilty before God, than he who 
does it on a plantation. Alas, alas ! for 52 years, or 2G times, 
the American voters have gone up to the ballot-box and 
taken the awful sin and crime of slavery on their own souls, 
by refusing to listen to the souvenir of the slave, but have 
joined hands with the wicked master, and silenced the 
mournful cry of God's unpitied poor, and added law to law, 
weight to weight, to his insupportable burdens. Let each 
man legislate under his deep accountability to Heaven, and 
there would never be a pro-slavery vote cast again. 



ARGUMENT, ON THE QUESTION 

WHETHER THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF 1844 

ABOLISHED SLAYEKY m NEW JEESEY. 

Supreme Court of Hew Jersey. — The State icb. Edwaed Van Buken, 
Writ of Habeas Corpus. 

The State vs. John A. Post, Writ of Habeas Corpus. 

Before the Justices of the Supreme Court of Xew Jersey., tlie Honora- 
ble Chief Justice Hoenblower, and Judges associated^ Neyius, 
Carpenter and Randolph. 

E. P. Palmer, Esq., Fetitiojier for the Slave and Apprentice. Alvan 
Stewart, Esq., of the State of New York\ Counsellor a7id Advocate for the 
ulave and apprentice, admitted to argue these caiises by the coxirtesy of the 
Court. A. 0. Zabriskie, Esq., of New Jersey, Counsel for Van Buren ; 
Alvan C. Bradley, Esq., of New York, Counsel for J onti A. Post. 

These cau.ses were argued before the Hon. Justices of the Siii)reme 
Court, at the Capitol in Trenton, on the 21st and 22d days of May, 
1845, Mr. Stewart occupied about eleven hours, and the defendant's 
counsel five hours, during two days and an evening. 

The argument in these two causes, in behalf of Mary Tebout, ]ield 
in the first case, as property, until twenty-one years of age, lier 
mother being a slave, and she being nineteen years of age ; and in the 
second case, William, a colored man, claimed by John A. Post as a 
slave for life, being about sixty years of age. Returns to the Writs 
of Habeas Corpus were duly made on Wednesday, the 21st of May, 
1845, in these causes respectively, before the justices aforesaid. 
These writs had been granted on a previous day, on motion of Alvan 
Stewart, Esq., in open Court. 

The object of those writs was to test the institution of slavery 

272 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 273 

in the State of Kew Jersey, which the counsel for tlic slave and ap- 
prentice contended was abolished, hy tlie first section of tlie IVill of 
Rights, in the new Constitution of tiiis Sr^te, which went into opera- 
tion the 2d September, 1844. Tlie defendant Van Buren, by liis 
counsel, returned to said writ, that he held the said Mary Tebout, by 
means of several intermediate conveyances, from a person who owned 
the mother of said Mary ; the said mother being a slave for life, and 
that the said Edward claimed to hold the said Mary, as his pro- 
perty, until she was twenty-one years of age, she now being nineteen 
years old, by virtue of a Statute, passed for the gradual abolition of 
slaver}^, in February, 1820, by which all slaves born previous to the 
fourth July, 1804, were slaves for life, and all children born of said 
slaves after 1804, were declared free, but to be held by the owners of 
their mothers as apprentices were ; who were bound out by the over- 
seers of the poor, males till twenty-five years of age, and females 
until twenty-one. The said male until twenty-five, and female until 
twenty-one, were held by their owners, their administrators and 
assigns, as property, or as other slaves are, until their time was out. 

The return in the case of John A. Post was the same in substance, 
that he held the said William, a colored man, as a slave by virtue of 
the law aforesaid, being born before 1804. To these returns general 
demurrers were put in, alleging the institution of slavery was abo- 
lished, and that the returns did not state suflScient authority to 
authorize the defendants to hold said persons. To which there was 
a joinder in demurrer. 

Both of these causes were argued together, depending on the same 
laws for their support, and for the purpose of obtaining a judicial 
decision, overthrowing the sy.^tem of slavery in New Jersey, in all its 
parts. The following pages are the substance of the argument and 
reply of Alvan Stewart, Esq., of New York, who appeared for the 
slave and servant, as their counsel. 

The first article of the new Constitution of New Jersey, of Septem- 
ber, 1844, is entitled "eights and privileges." 

" All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain 
natural and inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying 
and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting 
property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." 

12* 



274 ALVAN STEWART. 

It was supposed there were fi'om seven hundred to one thousand 
slaves, and from twenty-five hundred to three thousand servants or 
more, whose liberties were involved in the argument and decision of 
these causes, as well as the institution itself. 

AKGUMEXT. 

Alvan Stewart, Esq., arose and invoked the kind conside- 
ration of this Court, while he endeavored to break into a new, 
and almost nncultivated region, to explore and investigate the 
long neglected rights of man to his own body and soul. The 
courts of our country had sounded the depths of human 
learning, and all the vast stores of history, and the remains 
of antiquity had been overhauled, sifted and analyzed, with 
metaphysical sagacity, to determine wdth judicial accuracy, 
all the rights w^hicli men had to property, lands and tene- 
ments, corporeal and incorporeal. Everything in the shape 
of human acquisition had been again and again labored and 
belabored by the highest talents of the land, until learning 
and genius could do no more, to add to man's possessions ; 
while the great right of man to Imnself^ while innocent of 
self -owner ship ^ under all circumstances, is a great question, 
which has rather been grazed than lifted up, shunned than 
embraced, or duly considered, in all its mighty amplitude, 
and its solemn importance ; and then only at distant periods 
of time, and under the greatest disadvantage in point of time, 
place, position and circumstance. The controversies about 
lands and estates, and the personal rights oi freemen^ with 
all the subtle ramifications of the schoolmen, of various legal 
questions of our age, have been pressing the highest judicial 
forums of our land for decision, and constitute much of the 
drudgery of counsel, and labor of the judges. A modern 
legal opinion of counsel or judge is, that it is Ms opinion that 
he has clearly discovered w^hat Avas the opinion of Chief 
Justice Mansfield, or Lord Thurlow^ on this question, when 



SLAVERY m NEW JEIISEY. 275 

Lord M., or Lord T. saw lit to express an oinnioii on this 
subject. 

Considering the mighty questions of human liberty placed 
under the control of twenty-seven State constitutions, their 
laws, and the Federal Constitution and acts of Congress, and 
the ten thousand forms in which human liberty may be 
abused, from the most horrible slavery, to the slightest in- 
vasion of a trespass ; it seems passing belief, to be told, 
there is not one volume of reports, arguments and decisions, 
touchmg the great inalienable rights of man, invaded as they 
are, by communities, states, and individuals, as a regular 
commerce carried on in crushed and violated human rights, 
assaulted in every direction, overthrown, trodden under foot 
as they are, at every step and angle of passing life. The at- 
tention of our countrymen seems to have been turned to the 
contingencies and appurtenances of our race, rather than to 
man, and the elevation of the race itself Congress has shown 
more anxiety to protect the hats, the boots, and the coats 
which men wear, than the heads they cover, the bodies they 
surround, and the feet they inclose. That grave assembly 
can dispute from Christmas to dog-days, about the tariff, 
protection, free trade, and revenue, while a petition to 
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, to give a man to 
himself, a wife to a husband, and children to their parents, is 
received with profound astonishment as a moral anomaly, 
and when the House has recovered from its surprise, the peti- 
tion being so completely at right angles Avith the course of 
a Kepublican Congress, that unread, unprinted, undebatcd, 
and undecided, it is ordered to lie upon the table, until the 
clerk removes it to its sepulchral silence in one corner of the 
capitol, to rest with the other entombed memorials of a 
nation's dishonored humanity. 

ISTothing has been held so cheap as our common humanity, 
on a national average. If every man had his aliquot pro- 



276 ALVAN STEWART. 

portion of the injustice done in this land, by law and violence, 
the present freemen of the northern section would, many of 
them, commit suicide in self-defence, and would court the 
liberties awarded by Ali Pasha of Egypt to his subjects. 
Long ere this, we should have tested, in behalf of our bleed- 
ing and crushed American brothers of every hue and com- 
plexion, every new constitution, custom, or practice, by 
which inhumanity was supposed to be upheld, the injustice 
and cruelty they contamed emblazoned before the great 
tribunal of mankind for condemnation; and the good and 
available power they possessed, for the relief, deliverance, 
and elevation of oppressed men, permitted to shine forth 
from under the cloud, for the refreshment of the human 
race. 

Yet these laws and constitutions should have long ere this 
felt the weight of judicial pressure, and their good or evil 
been made prominent to the men of America, and the breadth 
and depth of the stream of national justice ascertained, so 
that we might know the exact, distance between our self- 
glorifications on our pompous anniversaries, and the pre- 
tended magnitude of our personal liberties, as compared Avith 
the stern and inexorable mandates of judicial decrees ; or 
what was the difference between an abstract dogma of liberty, 
and a practical decision of tyranny. 

Alas ! said Mr. S., how vast the distance between an ab- 
straction and a practicality ! Oh ! when shall we see that 
glorious day, when the lion and the lamb shall he down to- 
gether ? that day when the law, with its mercy, shall be 
extended to all, when none shall be so powerful as to over- 
ride its injunctions, none so low as to fall beneath its merciful 
protection ; defending all in their possessions ; the rich man 
in his castle, the poor man in his hberty, and the value of his 
labor, whether in the wilderness or in the city, on the high- 
way or in the closet • let this law of liberty brace the strong 



SLAVEKY IN NEW JERSEY. 277 

man on his journey, and its precious breathings fill tlie hings 
of the infmt in the cradle. 

Oh, for the glorious day Avhen we shall have freedom for 
all, wages for labor, education for all, mercy to all, justice for 
all, and God's religion in all ! It Avas a horrid thought, that 
in the nineteeth century there should be found educated men 
who were so weak, or so ignorant, as to suppose the title to 
the great, inalienable, God-given rights of life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, depended upon the complexion of a 
human being, whether white, black, brown, red, or in com- 
binations of these, with curled or long hair, thick or thin lips ; 
the body is the casket, the soul, the immortal mind, is the 
jewel. The jewels are homogeneous, the caskets may be in- 
finitely diversified. To deny the existence of the jewel, from 
the casket's being more or less plain than some other we 
have seen (when we know the jewel is within), is not more 
absurd than to make a man's right to liberty depend upon 
the color of his skin. But, such is the raw material of apo- 
logies for gross wickedness, and the vileness of the material 
is never improved by its manufacture. The raw material, its 
manufacture, the manufacturer, and the consumer' of such 
strange productions, ought to be bottled and hermetically 
sealed, where they might be seen through a glass case as 
certain lusus naturm^ or as a calf with two tails and no 
head, are seen in some of our museums. 

In order to understand the blessings which the new con- 
stitution of this State confers on the subject of liberty, it may 
not be amiss to look, for a few moments, at the past ages of 
the world, on the subject of slavery, and see how the men of 
antiquity saw and treated this terrible perversion of human 
rights. The ancient world, before the advent of our blessed 
Saviour, was filled with this awful crime. All pagan lands 
abounded with idolatry and slavery. But the glorious new 
religion, wherever it made a lodgment, amidst cruel scourg- 



278 ALVAJ^ STEWART. 

ings, the fagot and the flame, the block and the cross, the 
dungeon and the gibbet, obtained the ascendency ; and this 
dreadful institution fell before the mercy of the cross. 
From the conversion of Constantine in the fourth century, 
until the twelfth, Christianity fought her victorious battle 
with slavery, and came off conqueror, and drove it from the 
entire regions of continental Europe, or wherever Christianity 
obtained a foothold throughout Christendom. To be sure, 
there existed, owing to the Feudal Law, a sort of serf- 
dom, in some countries, which Avas different in application 
and character from the chattelhood of slavery. Time fails to 
tell how the various devices of pope, pontiff, bishops, eccle- 
siastical covmcils, decrees of councils, of kings, diets, and par- 
liaments, accomplished, during what is called the dark ages, 
this most glorious work. 

But the ever-memorable year of 1492 came, forever to be 
reckoned the most wonderful in the history of our race since 
our Saviour was born — a new world was discovered by Chris- 
topher Columbus, the grandest man of his race. 

The human passions burst into a mighty flame, fed by the 
accursed thirst of gold, discovery, and conquest. The 
peaceable and inoffensive red man of the islands of the An- 
tilles was forced as a slave to do work in the fields and in the 
mines ; and of that age of innocent red men, a whole genera- 
tion found that mercy in death, which their Spanish con- 
querors denied them. The good Las Casas, moved by a 
considerate sympathy for the red man, absurdly recom- 
mended to his prince and country, to repeal slavery as to the 
red man who could not endure its cruelty, and in lieu, abduct 
and kidnap laborers from the burning tropics of Africa ; and 
from 1520 this dreadful wound was opened in the side of 
Africa, which has continued from year to year, and from cen- 
tury to century, to flow on without intermission, until this 
very hour. For more than 300 years has Africa been de- 



SLAVEKY m NEW JEIIBEY. 279 

spoiled of her people by the kidnappers from the nations of 
Christendom, mitil Christendom in three centuries liad made 
it the Icno of nations to rob the men of Africa of hfe, libcrl v, 
and the pursuit of happiness, and made and revived the ex- 
tinct law of slavery, and with armed bands marched into de- 
fenceless villages on the Senegal and Gambia, set their habi- 
tations at midnight on fire, and with pistols, swords, fetters 
and ropes, pursued and overtook the distracted people and 
bound and sent them to this continent amidst hunger, thirst, 
contagion, disease, and death, the survivors in the pirate's 
ship, and in a land of strangers, they were sold to drag out 
life on the plantation of the haughty, the thankless, and the 
cruel. By such deplorable means has this continent fought 
against her own prosperity. 

Mr. Stewart then said he had two cases in his mind, whicli 
illustrated what all knew respecting slavery, and few whoso 
opinions were entitled to respect would dare deny them. 

Said he, lifting his head and turning to the northeast, di- 
recting all to look, and see what they could behold on the 
last day of November, 1620, on the confines of the Grand 
Banks of ISTew^foundland — lo ! I behold one little solitary 
tempest-tost and weather-beaten ship, it is all that can be 
seen on the length and breadth of the vast intervening soli- 
tudes ; from the melancholy wdlds of Labrador and New 
England's iron-bound shores, to the western coasts of Ireland 
and the rock-defended Hebrides, but one lonely ship greets 
the eye of angels or of men, on this great thorouglifare of 
nations in our age. Next in moral grandeur was this ship 
to the great discoverer's ; Columbus found a Continent ; the 
Mayflower brought the seed-wheat of states and empire. 
That is the Mayflower, with its servants of the Living God, 
their wives and little ones, hastening to lay the foundations 
of nations in the occidental lands of the setting sun. Hear, 
the voice of pirayer to God, for his protection, and the glorious 



280 ALVAN STEWAET. 

music of praise, as it breaks into the wild tempest of the 
mighty deep, upon the ear of God. Here in this ship are 
great and good men. Justice, mercy, humanity, respect for 
the rights of all ; each man honored, as he was useful to him- 
self and others ; labor-respecting, law-abiding men, constitu- 
tion-making and respecting-men ; men whom no tyrant could 
conquer, or hardship overcome, with the high commission 
sealed by a spirit Divine, to establish religious and political 
liberty for all. This ship had the embryo-elements of all 
that is useful, great and grand in northern institutions ; it 
was the great type of goodness and wisdom, illustrated in 
two and a quarter centuries gone by ; it was the good genius 
of America. 

But, look fir in the southeast, and you behold on the same 
day in 1620, a low, rakish ship hastcnhig from the tropics, 
solitary and alone, to the Mew World ; what is she ? She is 
freighted with the elements of unmixed evil ; hark ! hear those 
rattling chains, hear that cry of despair and wail of anguish 
as they die away in the unpitying distance. Listen to those 
shocking oaths, the crack of that flesh-cutting whip. Ah ! it 
is the first cargo of slaves on their way to Jamestown, Vir- 
ginia. Behold the Mayflower anchored at Plymouth rock, 
the slave ship in James River. Each a parent, one of the 
prosperous, labor-honoring, law-sustaining institutions of the 
North ; the other the mother of slavery, idleness, lynch-law, 
ignorance, unpaid labor, poverty, and duelling, despotism, 
the ceaseless swing of the whip, and the peculiar institutions 
of the South. These ships are the representation of good and 
evil in the New World, even to our day. When shall one of 
those parallel lines come to an end ? 

Mr. Stewart tl*en proceeded to the definition and origki of 
the word slave. He cited the encyclopedia under title, slave, 
as authority. The word, according to Vossius, is derived 
from selavuSy the name of a Scythian people, called the Scla- 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 281 

voni. The Romans called slaves sei^vi, from servare^ to Jceej) 
or save^ being such as were not killed in battle, but were 
saved to work or yield money. A slave bred in a family was 
called verna^ hence our word vernacular, or the slave's 
tongue. 

A Roman slave being set free, took the cognomen of his 
master for his sur or sir-name, and his slave name for his 
Christian — hence, our surname means the name of the lord 
or sir. So curiously has slavery interwoven itself in the affairs 
of men, that all men are made most singularly to feel the dis- 
grace of the institution in their paternal name. The Romans 
had those called mercenarily who had been rich, but having 
become poor, sold themselves for a time. 

The Greeks had those called Prodigals, who, having lost 
their estates by their extravagance, were sold to discharge 
their debts by law, for a longer or shorter time. Delinquents 
to the rev^enue, or unfaithful subtreasurers of the Roman Em- 
pire, were sent to the oar as slaves. But Tacitus describes the 
most remarkable slaves ("De Moribus Germanorum,") called 
enthusiasts, who were gamblers, who having staked and lost 
their money, goods and lands, finally staked their own bodies, 
and if they lost, the strong and the young lifted up their 
hands and received the fetters thereon, from the aged and 
weak, and were marched off forthwith to the slave market 
and sold by the winner as slaves for life. This was done 
imder the code of a gambler's honor. 

Those are the two kinds, among the ancients, of slavery, 
voluntary and involuntary. Some think slavery did not exist 
before the flood. But Alexander Pope thinks differently, and 
says: 

" Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began, 
A mighty hunter and his prey was man." 

A man has no right to sell himself, and if he had, he could 



282 ALVAN STEWART. 

not bind his posterity. A man is not allowed to kill himself. 
Blac. Book 1, 0. 14 ; Montesquieu's Spirit of Laics ^ b. 15, 
c. 2, and 6. Both say, if a man might be taken in war and made 
a slave, this war-right of the captor could not extend to the 
captives posterity. This alone would abolish slavery. The 
Romans exercised the power of hfe and death over a slave. 
So do slaveholders in the United States under certain circum- 
stances ; if the slave refuse to work, he, the master, may, by 
slave law, whip and beat him until he is dead, unless he sub- 
mits to go to work ; or if a slave attempt to run away, and 
the master commands him to stop, and he refuses, the master 
may shoot him down, and the slave laws of more than ten 
States say, amen. The Romans were very cruel, and had an 
island in the Tiber, where by law, they might send old^ useless 
and sick slaves to starve to death or die. It said as an evidence 
of slavery's hardening of the heart to human suffering, that the 
elder Cato sold his superannuated slaves for any price rather 
than maintain them. The Romans had slave dungeons under 
ground, called " ergastula," where the slaves were worked in 
chains. The same in Sicily, which country was cultivated by 
slaves in chains. Eunus and Athenio excited an insurrection 
of 60,000 slaves and broke up the dungeons. 

But we are more immediately interested in the light in 
which our English ancestors viewed these great questions of 
human rights, and we have derived most of our ideas of law 
and liberty from that interesting source. The case of Somer- 
set, to be found in the 20th vol. of British State Trials, also 
in Long's Reports and Burrows', is one of manifold interest. 
It was justly said by that great lawyer and civiHan, Mr. Har- 
grave, the counsel of the slave Somerset, though greatly aided 
in his brief by that eminent philanthropist, Granville Sharp, 
" that slavery corrupts the morals of the master by freeing 
him from those restraints so necessary for the control of the 
human passions, so beneficial in promoting the practice 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 283 

and confirming the habit of virtue." It is often dangerous 
to the master, as exciting implacable resentments on tlie part 
of the slave. 

Slavery communicates all the afflictions of life to its victim 
Avithout leaving scarce any of tlie pleasures ; it depresses the 
excellence of the slave's nature, by denying to the slave the 
ordinary means of improvement and elevation in the social 
scale of existence ; it brings forth the gross, malignant, cruel, 
mean, deceitful and hypocritical portions of human nature, 
without a counterpoise or a power of suppression. The slave 
is always the natural and implacable enemy of the State ; he 
owes it nothing but deadly hate. 

Instead of the Constitution and the laws being his shield 
and his inheritance, they are employed to strip him of his 
natural rights, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, 
existing antecedent to all human compacts ; and what should 
be employed for his protection and defence in the shape of 
law, is used lor his prostration and destruction. It is the 
element of constant fear to the family and the State, and is 
therefore real weakness to the State fiora the constant appre- 
hension from insurrection at home, or invasion from abroad, 
when it is always expected the slave will range himself in the 
ranks of the invader of the land. The slave has no country, 
no real home for which he will fight. Judge of the surprise 
of General Lafayette, when on the first day of being intro- 
duced to the American Congress in Philadelphia, in the sum- 
mer of 1777, he listened to the extraordinary request of 
South Carolina to be released from raising and equipping the 
quota of troops designed by Congress to be raised by that 
State as her proportion in the eventful struggle of the Revo- 
lution, on the ground that if she spared that number of troops 
from the State, it was feared that there might be a servile 
insurrection ; that it was necessary the troops should remain 
at hcfii^e to restrain a domestic enemy in her own bosom. K 



2i$4: ALYAN STEWAET. 

all the States had been under the weight of slavery like South 
Carolina, our Independence could never have been achieved. 
Such States as South Carolina may bluster and threaten their 
brethren in time of peace with nullification and revolution, 
but when war comes, her power to act out of her own terri- 
tory will be in the inverse ratio of the noise and threats she 
made in time of jDcace. The enemy of her own household 
will furnish a good market, not only for her capabilities but 
her courage. If the home market is the best one, she 
will find one at her own door, as ample as her productions 
may be abundant. 

In the late war, about midsummer of 1814, this nation 
was overwhelmed with shame, grief and astonishment, at the 
capture and sack of the city of Washington, by a body of 
British troops, soldiers, sailors, and marines. 

The public authorities had suflicient notice of the enemy's 
intention, the militia of the three cities of the District, and 
of the surrounding counties in the adjacent portions cf the 
old States of Virginia and Maryland, could have driven the 
British force into the sea, had not a report been universally 
circulated on the morning of the battle, and on the battle- 
ground at Bladensburgh, that the slaves of the District and 
of the adjacent counties, from which the militia were drawn 
for the defence of Washington, were to rise that day in 
insurrection in the absence of their masters. The moment the 
British approached our troops. President Madison, with the 
Secretaries of the Departments, fled from position to position, 
abandoning, as all who knoAV the ground may see, one favora- 
ble place after another, and finally retreated eight miles, from 
Bladensburgh to Washington, and at last the retreat became 
a general rout ; each man having his mind on the danger he 
feared in his own house or plantation from the insurrection 
of his slaves, rather than the immediate work of defending 
the Capitol of the nation. This is a perfect solution d||^hat 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 285 

disgraceful affair. It was the natural consequence which the 
weakness of a servile population creates, and the fear in a 
day of adversity which it will inspire. 

Mr. S., said he learned the cause of our disaster in 1818, 
while going over the ground of this disgraceful retreat, with 
a general, who was a brigadier on that mortifying day, and 
who assigned the above reasons to him as the cause of this 
most shameful result. 

John Locke declared a right to preserve life is inalienable ; 
that freedom from the exercise of arbitrary power is essential 
for the exercise of this right. 

In the sixth year of the reign of Edward III., 1334, a law 
was enacted declaring that all idle vagabonds should be 
made slaves, fed on bread and water or small drink, and 
refuse meat^ and should wear an iron ring around their necks 
and legs, and should be compelled by beating, chaining and 
otherwise, to perform the work assigned, were it never so 
vile ; the spirit of the English nation could not brook this, 
as applied to the most abandoned rogues, and repealed the 
law in two years after its enactment. But nothing places the 
judiciary of England on higher ground, than its patient 
work in extirpating villenage from England. It was an insti- 
tution connected Tvith the feudal system, and the Gorman 
Conquest of 1060, and the other conquests obtained in pre- 
vious ages, and was nearly alHed to slavery, in everything but 
the name, so that it is supposed that at one period, there 
were not less than three quarters of the population of the 
kingdom, who were either villeins regardant, or villeins in 
gross. The dishonor of such a state of things has been so 
deeply felt by thousands, who are descendants of these bond- 
men in England, and who now^ rank high in the scale of 
society, that there is rather a desire to conceal than reveal 
the odious state in which our ancestors existed ; therefore, 
Da^plume and Sir William Blackstone are very niggardly 



286 ALVAN STEWAET. 

in dealing out information on an infamous and obsolete insti- 
tution, so humiliating to our ancestors, and humbKng to their 
descendants. 

But, to understand the terrible hardsliij^s endured and suf- 
fered by our ancestors, for many generations, and the glorious 
way of their deliverance by the judges of England, may furnish 
us with valuable deductions, which may be applied to solve any 
difficulty growing out of the causes under consideration, by 
learning what use a court may make of laio to establish justice. 

A villein in blood and by tenure was one whom the lord 
might whip and imprison. The villein could acquire no pro- 
perty except for the lord. *' Quidquid acqiiiritur servo, 
acquiritur domino?'' A villein regardant passed with the 
land of his lord, on which he lived as a kind of property like 
the trees, but might be severed and sold when the lord 
pleased. — Co. Littleton^ 117 «. If he was a villein in gross, 
he was an hereditament, or chattel real, according to the 
lord's interest, being descendable to the heir, when the lord 
was absolute owner of the soil, and the executor, when the lord 
was possessor for only a term of years. The common law 
held, if both parents were villeins, or the father only, the issue 
were villeins. The child at common law followed the condi- 
tion of the father. Partus seqidtur patrem y while the civil 
law held. Partus seqidtur ventrem. Therefore, it was a 
departure from all principle, for the slaveholders of the United 
States, who, if they inherited anything from England, 
inherited the common law, to substitute the principle of the 
civil law, because they could make more money by it, and 
say the child in slavery should follow the condition of the 
mother, when the common law said it should follow the 
father ! But why reason on a subject, when brute force and 
selfishness stand in the place of right reason and truth ? Had 
the doctrine of the common law been followed, slavery, from 
its mulattoism, a significancy of the times, would haBpbeen 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 2S7 

in its last quarter. The object of drawing this all Init ohso- 
Icte learning from past centuries, was not to make a puhlic 
parade for the sake of its strangeness ; but to show in the 
great struggle, in past ages, between slavery and liberty, 
how the judiciary of England conducted itself in those 
encounters between the powers of hght and darkness. 

The Courts of Law in the British Isles, from the Conquest 
down, employed every intendment of humanity, every device, 
every fiction, in behalf of the unfortunate serf. One rule 
w^as, for the court always to presume in favor of liberty ; but 
in some thirteen States of our Union, if a man is of African 
descent, he is presumed a slave, until the victim proves a 
negative. In England, the onus x>rohandi lay on him who 
asserted slavery or villenage. If a villein prosecuted a WTit 
oi Ilomine Eeplegiando against his lord, on the trial the lord 
had to prove affirmatively that the plaintiff was his villein, 
and the villem, though the plaintiff, might stand still in court 
till that w^as done by the defendent. The lord's remedy for a 
fugitive villein w\as the w^'it Nativo Ilabendo^ or Neifty. If 
the lord seized the villein by his w^'it of Nativo Habendo, 
the villein procured the ^\Y\t of Ilomine Beplegiando^ or 
Lihertate Probanda. 

By the Avrit of Nativo Habendo^ the master asserted 
slavery, and if the master w^as once nonsuited^ he could never 
sue the serf again, and the villein might plead the record of 
nonsuit as a perpetual bar. Not so, if the villein was non- 
suited on the writ oiHomine Replegiando\ or Lihertate Pro- 
banda. He might sue again for his Uberty, and the record 
of nonsuit, if made ten times or more against him, could 
never be pleaded or used against him. The slightest mistake 
on the part of the lord, or accident, was laid hold of by the 
court to defeat the recovery of the lord. — SomerseVs Case, 
20th vol. of Haswell's State Trials. So this honorable court 
of New Jersey should do, under the new constitution of this 



288 ALVAN STEWART. 

State — the constitution adopted by the people in 1844. This 
court, in accordance with the noble example of England's 
judiciary, should make every intendment in behalf of your 
bondmen, as between the selfish and cruel demand of slavery 
and the ceaseless cry of liberty. Give the slave the benefit 
of every sensible doubt, which may cloud the mind of this 
honorable court. 

Sueing, or being sued by a villein, freed him. The lord's 
granting him an imparlance, manumitted him, or asking an 
imparlance of the villein did the same. Almost the last case 
of villenage reported, was near the year 1600, on the acces- 
sion of James I. Crouch's case is reported in Dyer. All of 
these obstructions thrown in the way of this sort of slavery, 
are most interesting legal relics of servitude, showing the 
metaphysical dress in which it was clothed by our subtle and 
ingenious ancestors. These were patterns of extinct fashions 
of opinions, now only to be found in the ponderous tomes of 
antiquity, garnered up in the library of the legal antiquarian ; 
as the visors, steel and brass armor, of the 10th century, dis- 
close to us the mode and appearance of the knights on the 
field of battle in the days of chivalry. 

To establish villenage, the villein must be proved such by 
two other male villeins, ex eodem stirpe^ from the same stock, 
or the villein might confess in open court, being a court of 
record, that he was one. The female villein was not allowed 
her testimony to prove a man a villein. A villein was called 
nativus, as well as villcmus, from the lord's villa, nativus 
from being found on the soil — a native. The lord, on declar- 
ing on a writ Nativo Habendo^ had to bring his two witnesses 
with him at the same instant he declared, and if he did not, 
the villein went forever free. A man might plead bastardy, in 
himself, father, grandfather or ancestors, and if the plea be 
true, that, alone, manumitted the villein, for the Jilius mdlius 
estjilius popidi. For if there was a link of illegitimacy, it set 



SLAYEKT IN NEW JERSEr. 289 

the line of descendants from the bastard free, because the lord 
could not show that he -was the son of his bondmen in par- 
ticular. 

Another plea of the villein was called admntiff by the 
Norman French Law, showing that a person was born off 
from the manor, and if true, it set the man and his descend- 
ants free. 

Sir Thomas Grantham, about the year 1G84, bought a 
monster in the East Indies, and brought him to England as a 
show. The monster had, growing on his breast, the entire 
parts of a child, except its head. The monster being carried 
through the kingdom as a show, was baptized, and he 
brought a writ of Homine Replegiando against his master, 
and was set free. 

I have done with villenage in England — such in a dark age 
was the view which learned jurists and judges took of this 
important matter. The judiciary in many countries have 
been, at different periods of civilization, the last branch of 
human government, to feel the force of popular opinion, in 
behalf of liberty, or employ its power in accelerating the 
march of freedom, or the overthrow of strongholds of forti- 
fied oppression. It is not a matter of complaint that the 
judiciary is the hold-hack jpower of the State, or conservative 
in its character, but with all that, it has a high mission to 
discharge on the part of liberty. And the English judiciary 
have shown the world during those dark ages what they 
understood to be contained in their commissions, touching 
England's bondmen, even, under the iron rule of the haughty 
Norman and his imperious descendants, who, by rights of 
conquest, and by the subserviency of supple parliaments con- 
nected with the agency of the Feudal System, had reduced 
four-fifths of the inhabitants of England to the condition of 
villeins regardant, and villeins in gross, attached to the soil, 
or the person of some grandee of the realm, as slaves, whom 

13 



290 ALVAN STEWART. 

their lord might scourge, sell, or transfer with the soil, or at 
will. 

The judiciary of England became the Temple of Mercy to 
which these unfortunate bondmen cast their imploring eyes 
for relief through a succession of five cruel centuries, during 
eighteen generations of men. The courts of English law 
during this long period, employed all the subtleties, fictions, 
and presumptions, in which the English Law abounds, in 
behalf of the hberty of these grossly injured men, so that at 
last, the sublime moral spectacle was presented to this world, 
of many unrepealed statutes, and the common law still in full 
force in favor of villenage, while the bloody useless fetters 
hung on the tyrant's dungeon walls, but the last bondman of 
the three-fourths of the population of a mighty kingdom was 
enfranchised from captivity, by force of England's glorious 
judiciary alone. The king, and iron-mailed barons, the land- 
owners, and man-holders, were foiled, and their prey taken 
from their power by the resolution of the judges, who, being 
determined, did administer justice through the law. 

Montesquieu says that Aristotle, in reasoning to sustain 
slavery as derived from war, cites authorities from barbarous 
ages, and appears in this matter as unphilosophical as he does 
in the nature of the thing. The war-power to be the source 
of a right, when the war is prosecuted for no other motive 
except the value of the captive, is as rational as to give the 
robber title to his spoil, because he had the courage to take 
it— making a crime the most bold and daring, the parent of a 
civil right. Behold bleeding Africa, for three hundred years 
her wounded side has flowed, and yet flows on, unstaunched 
by the humanity of the nations. Behold this accursed crime 
which has crawled up with brutal impudence, and enthroned 
itself as one amongst the laws of nations. Laws of nations! 
What was this law of nations ? That Christendom had a 
common right to plunder, burn, murder^ enslave irredeema- 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 291 

bly, and make property of the inhabitants of that ill-fated 
continent, in and through all coming generations of their pos- 
terity. A laio of nations! that all law, justice, mercy, 
humanity, should be suspended, as to one quarter of the 
globe ; a laio of nations^ that piracy, murder, fraud, arson, 
kidnapping, ravishment and steaUng, should be considered 
lawful as an injunction of the law of nations, to be honored 
and obeyed. A law of nations directly at war with every 
other law constituting that code ; a law of nations, striking 
justice down, and sending it into eternal banishment from the 
world, subverting the decalogue of God, blaspheming Omni- 
potence, brandishing the powers of perdition im the face of 
the AUseeing, calling this bold defiance of the Almighty, the 
law of nations ! Out upon such infinite perversion, such 
inexpressible criminality. Russia, Prussia, Holland, Austria, 
England, France, Sardinia and the United States, in the last 
forty years, as it regards themselves, by treaty and legisla- 
tion, have abolished their respective portions in this frightful 
law of nations, while Spain, Portugal and Brazil, three of 
the basest kingdoms of earth, are now retrograding into the 
darkness of barbarism and infamy, and without competition 
are now almost the exclusive proprietors of this law of 
nations and its abounding criminality. Look at Spain three 
hundred and fifty-three years ago, as she stood on the day of 
Columbus' discovery, head and shoulders above the powers 
of Europe. Conquest, avarice, slavery and idleness, which 
she introduced to the new world, re-acted on her, and in 
om' day, she has been stripped of her mines, her provinces, 
viceroy alties, kingdoms and one half of a continent, and is 
now reduced to the island of Cuba, with its crimes of flowing 
blood, slavery, idleness and avarice ; these relatives have been 
punished in so signal a manner, in the case of Spain, by Him 
who rules the destinies of nations, that to deny it, is a proof 
that our ignorance is only surpassed by our infidelity. 



292 ALVAN STEWART. 

The court will pardon me in these remarks, which in the 
first instance may appear remote from this question, yet when 
we consider the character of the human mind, they will all be 
found to bear on the great question in the Constitution of 
this State. What do we mean by liberty and independence ? 
Infinitely absurd to say, a man has power even in himself, 
by contract, to dispose of his own liberty and all the rights 
he possesses. Society has claims on him, his wife, his chil- 
dren, and his God, which he cannot cancel by selling himself 
to another. Yes, coming generations have a voice in the 
question. He has no more right to sell his body than he has 
to commit faicide, for, by so doing, he passes from manhood 
to thing, or chattelhood, and becomes a piece of breathing 
property. The great rights of manhood are not given to us 
by our Creator, to give, sell, and barter away. The powers 
of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, cannot be re- 
signed to a power inferior, to that of the one, from whom 
they have been received. 

As to the consideration that might be given for those God- 
inherited rights, described in your Constitution, as inahena- 
ble, who is rich enough to buy them, who is able to make 
title to them ? Suppose that some Croesus owned this con- 
tinent, and the mines of Golconda, and should ofier them to 
me to become his slave, according to the laws of South 
CaroUna and Louisiana ; at the same instant, he executes for 
the consideration of my person, a deed of the continent and 
mines to me, and I execute to him a deed of my body. The 
purchaser of me, by the operation of the slave laws, instantly 
becomes repossessed of what passed to me by grant, under 
the maxim that the slave and all he hath, or may find or 
acquire, belongeth to the master, therefore, I the slave would 
say, that the consideration having failed, and by operation of 
law, my master having become reseized of his continent and 
mines, I am fi-ee again. Thus, it would be found impossible 



SLAVERY IN" NEW JERSEY. O93 

to make a bargain resting upon equity, for the sale of one's 
person, as the whole subject revolves in a circle of never- 
ending absurdities, justice leaving the parties where it found 
them : man with equal success having attempted to quadrate 
the circle, create perpetual motion, and make a contract for 
the sale of a man, by his own agreement, on consideration of 
value for value received by the slave upon the principles of 
slaveholding law ! If a man could not perform the act of 
making himself a slave, how could another do it for him, or a 
State or a government, without doing an act repugnant to 
that law of nature spoken of in the first article of your new 
Constitution? ,i 

When I applied for these writs o^ Habeas Corpus some 
days since, to one branch of this court, it was remarked by 
one member of the court, that this case would require great 
consideration from its efifect on the towns of this State, as it 
might subject said towns to the maintenance of worn-out, 
aged and infirm slaves, in the shape of paupers. That con- 
tingency is possible, but forms no ground against awarding 
to the bondmen that constitutional justice, so long withheld 
by the consent of these towns, as well as the avaricious 
masters. It w^as argued in the Somerset case by Mr. Dun- 
ning, the counsel of the claimant of Somerset, that if this 
slave was set free by the judgment of the court, there were 
then at large fourteen thousand slaves in England, belonging 
to gentlemen in the West Indies, Avho, for their own conve- 
nience, had brought them to England, and valuing them at 
£50 per head, they would amount to £700,000, or $3,500,000. 
What was the memorable reply of Lord Mansfield ? It w^as, 
" that a man's natural relations go with him everywhere^ his 
municipal, to the bounds of the country of his ahodeP And 
in answer to the suggestion of a loss by the proprietors of 
the 14,000 negro slaves in England, said Lord Mansfield, 
''^we have no authority to regulate the conditions on which 



294 ALVAN STEWART. 

law shall operate. We cannot direct the law, the law must 
direct us." 

So, the argmnentum ah inconvenienti should not apply in 
this case. If these slaves have been worn out by the consent 
of the public, if that public have folded their arms in silence, 
and witnessed the robbery of these men, from year to year, 
©f their earnings (which might have supported them in the 
evening of life), it is right that the Same pubHc should sup- 
port them when they can toil no more in the enjoyment of 
their just liberty. For it is always dangerous to men to see 
liberty struck down in others, and becaus'e they do not taste 
its bitterness personally, passively to look on without resist- 
ance. It will sooner or later strike back on themselves. That 
man is not worthy of Ubcrty, who will not fly to the rescue 
of his brother when he sees his freedom struck down or 
assailed. Our liberties are always invaded when the humblest 
individual is deprived of his, without our making all the 
resistance within our power. 

At the time of the argument of the Somerset case, in 1771, 
the world was full of slavery, especially the \Yest Indies, and 
the colonies of this continent — it was tolerated in all. But 
behold what may be done by the indomitable perseverance 
of one man, if that man be Granville Sharpe. He Avas a 
gentleman of small means, but of a great heart, and had for 
some time made the study of human rights a subject of great 
consideration. He had read, thought, and written in their 
behalf, and was the prosecutor who interested himself for 
Somerset, the slave of one William Stuart, a West India 
planter, and prepared much of the brief of Mr. Hargrave, 
and obtained the writ of habeas corpus^ returnable in the 
Court of King's Bench, at his ow^n expense. The court 
heard the argument patiently the live-long day, and decided 
against the slave, on the authority of a case in 1749, in Lord 
Hardwick's and Lord Talbot's time. Nothing discouraged 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 295 

Granville Sharpe ; at the next term he brought up Somerset 
a second time, and the question was so important, that the 
court heard the argument a second time, and decided, as 
before, against the slave. Poor Granville Sliarpe, still 
contended that a slave " could not breathe in England," and 
having spent some months in deep study, upon the law of 
England, though a layman, he brought up Somerset for tl>e 
third time before the Court of Kmg's Bench, which had Lord 
Mansfield for its chief, who did not meet poor Sharpe and his 
counsel with a rebuke for liis unconquerable fanaticism and 
obstinacy, nor did the court throw down the common im- 
pediment to the march of mind and further consideration, by 
saying "res adjudlcata .,'*'* '-'■res adjudlcata I^"* No! where 
human liberty was concerned, or the great rights of self-owner- 
ship staked upon human reasoning and judicial determination, 
Lord Mansfield was not in haste to say *' we have decided 
against human nature." The cause was argued a third time 
for a day in Westminster Hall, and Granville Sharpe had, 
since the last argument, descended into the deepest wells of 
EngHsh liberty and brought up a draught of the waters of 
life, liberty, mercy, and law, so pure, that when it was com- 
mended to the lips of the judges, they were made wise, the 
scales fell from their eyes, and they saw in its length and 
breadth the mighty truth beaming on the forehead of justice 
herself—" that slaves cannot breathe in England," and the 
light of that day has shone on with increasing strength and 
beauty, until we can now say, that the sun which never sets 
upon the realms of the British Empire, beholds in his circuit 
through the heavens, no slave to crouch beneath her vast 
illimitable power. 

But oh ! what shall we say of the sublime humanity of 
Lord Mansfield and his compeers, who were not afraid to con- 
fess they had been wrong, and had the magnanimity to say it 
before a slaveholding age ? This day saw the longest stride 



296 ALVAN STEWAET. 

which British greatness ever took on the highway of human 
glory. 

Would to heaven that all courts might imitate the illus- 
trious example in administering justice in the sublime humility, 
which dignified the court and exalted our kind, as in the case 
of Somerset ! The great principles established in the Somerset 
case awakened the philanthropy of England, and put forth 
Its strength in 1783, 1788, 1792, 1796, 1797, and finally, in 
1806, was successful in the abohtion of the African slave 
trade by Parliament. Wilberforce, Pitt, and Fox were foiled 
again and again, in Parliament, the theatre of their eloquence, 
and seat of their power, but justice finally prevailed. This 
was the first great blow struck for the man of Africa, in three 
hundred years, from the beginning of his American and West 
Indian enslavement. But from that day, the vindication of 
his rights has been onward. Congress, in 1774, recommended 
the ceasing of the African slave trade in December, 1775, 
but it was not abolished untilJanuary, 1808, by a law passed 
the March before, in 1807. Three acts of Congress were 
passed in 1814, 1820, and in 1824, increasing the penalties 
against transgressors, until it finally declared that all who 
were engaged therein, were pirates, and subject to the j^irate's 
doom. An act of Congress passed in 1787, declared that 
involuntary servitude, or slavery, should never exist in the 
Northwestern Territory, comprising the present States of 
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, IMichigan, and the territories of Wis- 
consin and Iowa. These early acts of national legislation 
show which way the mind of the nation pointed at this time. 

A slave is a rational human being, endowed with vohtion 
and understanding, like the rest of mankind, and whatever 
he laAvfully acquires and gains possession of, by finding or 
otherwise, is the acquirement and possession of his master. 
— 4 Dessaus. 266; 1 Stewart i2e/j). 320. Slaves cannot 
contract matrimony ; their earnings and their children belong 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 297 

to the master. — Slave Law. Indians are held as slaves in 
New Jersey. — HalsteacVs Rep. 374. 

Behold the shameful injustice of the Law of Slavery. 

If it be found by a jury on inspection, that the person 
claimed to be a slave is white, the claimant must prove him 
a slave or he will go free ; but if the jury find the person to 
be of African descent, the law of slavery presumes the per- 
son a slave, by whomsoever he may be claimed, and the bur- 
den is thrown on the alleged slave to prove a negative — that 
he is not a slave. — Wheeler's Law of Slavery, 22. The 
owner of a female slave may give her to one person, and the 
children she may thereafter have to another \~Law of Sla- 
very, 2. A slave cannot be a witness before any court or 
jury in the land, against a free white for the greatest injus- 
tice. This is one of its most horrible features. 

Look to the case of an alien white child. Suppose her to 
be the daughter of parents of the lowest class of those who 
migrate from Ireland to America, and that these parents 
should die on their passage over the Atlantic, leaving to the 
mercy of New Jersey laws, and the good people of Perth 
Amboy, their daughter, twelve years old, who cannot read or 
write, barefooted, destitute and friendless. Under your laws, 
the overseers of the poor bind her out, to the mayor of Tren- 
ton ; she has hved with this rich, popular and influential citizen 
but one little month, when by violence, she is dishonored by 
her master, the mayor. Is he safe from the retributions of 
justice ? Is she deprived of her oath ? No. She comes, 
friendless and lonely, and knocks at the door of your grand- 
jury room. Humble and feeble a§ is that knock, it is quickly 
heard by the acuteness of humanity's ear. She enters the 
vestibule of the great temple of justice, and immediately the 
majesty of the entire law of the land, not only of New 
Jersey, but of this vast empire, stands in its mighty invisi- 
bility around for her protection, ready to be revealed in its 

13* 



298 ALYAN STEWART. 

power. She is invitecl, on oath, to tell the story of her 
wrongs, the mclignant grand-jurors listen and believe, and 
find a bill against the mayor ; she goes and comes under the 
law's broad shield. This haughty man is found by the offi- 
cers of the law, is arrested by its power, and brought before 
a court to plead to this indictment. He is tried ; a second 
time, she, the friendless, comes and tells the tale of her dis- 
honor ; confiding justice, humanity, loving and honoring men 
believe her story ; he is convicted and attempts to fly the 
power of the State and Union, which is by that child's oath 
already set in motion, and Avill prevail against money and 
mobs of rescue, all of these cannot save the big criminal 
from the vengeance of the law ; to the penitentiary for ten 
long years, he must and does go ; yes, the merciful majesty 
of the law shines gloriously on the head of the friendless 
foreigner. This is being born free and independent by the 
law of nature, under your Constitution. 

But not so of the i)oor injured slave, man or woman, native 
born though they be, however cruel or terrible the wrong 
inflicted on them, by their owner or other free man, the 
slave is not to be heard to tell his or her story, however true, 
before any human tribunal in the land against a free white 
person. Is this being free and independent by the law of 
nature ? Is this possessing the safety and happiness described 
in the first article of the new Constitution, which your or- 
ganic law declares to be a portion of all, of woman born ? 
Slavery imports perpetual obligation to serve another ! Does 
that look like being free and independent ? 

Slavery, is so abhorrent to all justice and mercy, that all 
the intendments of law and justice are opposed to it ; so that 
the legal writers of slave countries say that it can only exist 
by force of positive law. The lex scripta must be its founda- 
tion, and that I think you no longer have. The lex scripta 
must be the source of all of that mischievous power, which 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 299 

one human being can exercise over another, by making a 
fellow-being his slave, his chattel. The foundation of slavery 
which sprang up in our colonies, had, as a general rule, 
nothing but the barbarous custom of a few inhuman planters, 
in its origin, which custom was one within legal memory, 
and ran not back to that unsurveyed point of antiquity, trans- 
cending all human memory, where its source was hidden in 
the night of by-gone ages. It has not that common law 
authority for its support, which was supposed to be handed 
down from generation to generation, in the hbraries of 
judges and lawyers, as copies, as some conjecture, of obso- 
lete, worn-out and extinct statutes. As the soul survives 
the body, so it is supposed these customs called common law, 
are the souls or spirits of departed statutes, the tombstones 
and graves of which can no longer be found. Cineres /)en- 
erunt. But their imperishable souls still remain to guide 
and direct us on the journey of life, and as far as they speak in 
the language of authority over this land, they forbid in trum- 
pet tongues, the existence of this vile institution of slavery. 

l7istitution of slavery ! Institution of horse-steaUng, insti- 
tution of gambling, and the institutions of highwaymen, 
sound equally sensible, to a just and philosophical thinker. 
But slavery is within the memory of men, so far as its advent 
to the new world is concerned. We track it from the 
middle passage to this hour, from its first unholy foot-print 
at Jamestown to the last ones made this day by those now 
held in IsTew Jersey ; and if the court finds, existing, a well- 
grounded doubt as to the authority for this institution which 
is trying to nestle down on our soil, and is taking rank with 
your scientific, religious and agricultural institutionc, then 
give humanity the advantage of that doubt, and put the sys- 
tem to death. As between strength and weakness, power 
and imbecility, if a strong doubt arise in the minds of the 
judges, the mercy of the law says, decide in favor of imbe- 



300 ALVAN STEWART. 

cility and weakness ; " those who are ready to perish," let 
their blessing come upon you. Every intendment is in favor 
of natural rights, imtil the contrary doth most manifestly 
appear. If the new Constitution has seriously drawn in ques- 
tion the villainies and crimes of this complicated institution 
of wrong, then this court, acting within the spirit and scope 
of American institutions, are bound to give the slave the 
benefit of that doubt and set him free. A solid doubt should 
secure emancipation. But thanks to the freemen of New 
Jersey, the court is not obliged to look through clouds to see 
the clear sky of Liberty beyond, for its Constitution, in its 
first section, asserts in the strongest form of the English 
language, the explicit principles put forth in the Declaration 
of Independence, when our country was introduced into the 
family of nations, by which we declared the great self-evident 
truth to be, that all men Avere created free and equal, and 
possessed of certam inalienable rights, among which are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, wliich is the proposition 
of the Constitution of Xew Jersey, expressed so distinctly, 
that cavil itself looks on in humble silence, and hangs his 
head in mute despair. For these great man-rights, as I have 
said, there is no buyer, no seller, no market. They are a 
trust confided to man by his Maker, in order to place him at 
the head of the created life, and give him dominion over it ; 
and his rank he can never sell, lose, or forfeit so as to take his 
station as property among the quadrupeds and animals. In 
the fall of Adam man never fell so low as the slaveholder 
would have wished ; for, according to the law of slavery, the 
poor slave in the disastrous fall of the first transgression 
" which brought death into the world, and all our woes," 
fell out of his manhood into chattelhood, and fell on till 
he lost his wife, his children, and in the amazing descent as 
he further fell, he lost all his property, and all he should 
thereafter acquire ; and as he further fell, he himself became 



SLAVERY IN NEW .TEKSEY. 301 

property, and brought not up on solid ground, until lie could 
say to the neighing horse, on the one hand, " thou art, as pro- 
perty, my brother," and to the lowing ox, on the other, 
"thou art my equal, my peer." Such is the slaveholder's 
construction of the fall, but this is one of man's pit-falls, and 
not one of his Maker's. 

Mr. S. said he had an argument, which the court might 
regard as novel, which he wished to urge — that each and 
every branch of our government, state or national, were 
under a most solemn covenant with one of the great nations 
of the earth, to use our best endeavors to abolish slavery, in 
every part of our country ; and we have been living under 
the weight of that solemn and disregarded undertaking for 
the last thirty years. I understand a treaty made by the 
treaty-making power to be the solemn and j)araraount law of 
this land, and if I am right in its construction, the duty is 
imposed upon our nation, and I may well urge it even upon 
the judiciary of this State, as a coordinate branch of the 
government, to employ all the power it constitutionally may 
possess, by its decision, to fulfill this engagement of the nation. 

The article to which I refer, is the 10th article of the 
treaty of Ghent, of the 24th December, 1814, made by the 
United States of America on the one side, and his Britannic 
Majesty on the other. Lest there should be some attempt to 
cavil, and pretend this article of the treaty had reference to 
the African slave trade, I may be allowed to say there is not 
one word in the treaty, except in the 10th article, which 
touches or relates to the subject of slavery, and it is an 
engagement relating to slavery as to the traffic generally in 
the two countries, for each had aboHshed the African slave 
trade under the most tremendous penalties long before 1814 ; 
therefore the treaty referred to slavery generally in the two 
countries. The words of the 10th section of the treaty of 
Ghent are as follows : 



302 -ALVAN STEWART. 

" 10th Article. Whereas the tr-affic in slaves is irreconcila- 
ble with the principles of humanity and justice, and whereas 
both his Majesty, and the United States are desirous of con- 
tributing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is 
hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use 
their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object. 

" Signed 2'Uh December, 1814. 

" Gambler, 

Hexry Goulbukx, 
William Adams, 
,,,^ . . ,. , JoHx QumcY Adams, 

{-Done m triplicate.) J. A. Bayard, 

H. Clay, 

JOXATHAN RuSSEL, 

Albert Gallatin." 
United States Laws, 1st vol., 699. 

This treaty, so long dishonored on our part, has been most 
faithfully respected and obeyed on the part of Great Britain. 
They immediately began to adopt means for the subversion 
of slavery as a system in the West Indies. To be sure the 
violence, disorder, and lynch law of the slaveholders of the 
West Indies defeated the kindness, and deferred the approach- 
ing justice of the English nation for some years. It was 
astonishing to see the impudence of the West India planters 
threatening dismemberment of the empire, revolution, and 
treason, as often as the mother country originated a measure 
in any degree preparatory to emancipation. These contuma- 
cious slaveholders did all in their power to frighten England 
from her high purposes, 1st, by asserting that the slaves 
would cut their master's throats if emancipated ; 2d, that the 
slaves were so brutified, they would all starve to death, and 
die from laziness, and could not take care of themselves; 
that the slaves were thieves and drunkards ; that the whites 
would have to abandon the island if they were set free, and 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 303 

lose their estates ; in fact that slaves were not men, and had 
no souls. Amalgamation, house-burning, and universal deso- 
lation would be the first fruits of such procedure. 

The Moravian, Baptist and Methodist ministers exposed 
themselves to great rage from the slaveholders in attempting, 
as Christian ministers and good subjects, to preach the Gos- 
pel to the slaves, and aid them in information, and in further- 
ing the objects of the mother country. Baptist and Metho- 
dist meetmg-houses or churches were torn dovra and burnt, 
and these blessed ministers were in constant peril of losing 
their lives, and were occasionally imprisoned and banished 
from their homes and families. In fact, everything, which 
is said against emancipation and aboHtionists in Mississippi, 
Georgia, and South Carolina, was said in the British West 
Indies thousands and thousands of times by the press, reso- 
lutions of public meetings, the Island Legislatures, and the 
voice of man, against emancipation and British abolitionists ; 
but on the passage of the great Reform Bill of England in 
1833, about 500,000 new law-makers or voters were added 
to the old parliamentary constituenxjy of England, and when 
this fresh stream of popular power flowed, it rose so high, 
that on the bosom of its flood it carried into the new Par- 
liament men deeply sympathizing with the great principles 
of justice, and one of their first act of legislation was to 
declare slavery abolished in the West Indies, paying £20,- 
000,000 sterling to the slaveholders, and giving them, the 
masters, six years more the service of the slaves, so that 
emancipation would not take place until the first of August, 
1840. This apprenticeship system, regulated by a most com- 
plicated law, with especial justices to stand between master 
and apprentice, proved, if possible, more bitter than slavery 
itself. Nothing could have been more mifortunate, or fraught 
with greater injustice to the colored people. 

The master's avarice and cruelty arose in proportion to the 



304 ALVAN STEWART. 

shortness of the time that he could exercise his despotism. 
The special justices intended for the slave apprentice's friend, 
eat sumptuous dinners with the planter, and decided contro- 
versies in his favor. The humanity of the government in the 
apprenticeship system, was entirely defeated by the greedi- 
ness, cruelty, and avarice of masters. The horrid flogging, 
the treadmills, and other instruments of slaveholding ven- 
geance and torture were in full play durmg the probationary 
state. The mother country had been overreached in paying 
twenty millions of pounds sterling to see the objects of their 
solicitude so shamefully treated. The mistake of the home 
government was in supposing it possible to ingraft a system 
of apprenticeship, education, and a preparation for freedom, 
on tlie old tree of slavery, and. in having confidence in those 
brutal, cruel, and avaricious slaveholders, who, with their 
twenty millions of pounds, and six years of labor, only hated 
the poor slave the more as his liberty advanced day by day 
in his chains. Finally, in January or February, 1838, the 
British minister Avrote to the governors of these islands, 
requesting them in the coming spring and summer to convoke 
those insular legislatures and ask them forthwith to abolish 
the remaining two years of the apprenticeship system, if the 
islands wished for the future good will of the slaves, or in 
fact, the protection of the parent country, in case of insur- 
rection. This stringent measure brought the obstinate slave- 
holders to their senses. The West India Island parliaments 
were convoked, and the final acts of emancipation passed, to 
take effect simultaneously on the 1st of August, 1838, except 
the island of Antigua, whose parliament, with great good 
sense, abolished slavery and apprenticeship both, in 1834, in 
an island of 30,000 blacks, and 5,000 whites— six to one. 
Great kindness, love, education and prosperity followed thia 
island. However, the eventful first of August, 1838, at last 
came, and instead of blood and insurrection, as prophesied by 



SLAVERY IN NKW JERSF.Y. 305 

the selfish and cowardly, the blacks throughout the British 
West Indies, to the number of 800,000 human beings, who 
had been slaves, met in the evening of the 31st of July, 1838, 
and there continued in a solemn and quiet manner until the 
moment of midnight came, when the bells of the churches of 
the British West Indies struck and j^layed from island to 
island, while cannon were roaring throughout the great 
Antilles — they were the glorious peals of freedom, the joyful 
freed men raising notes of thanksgiving and praise to heaven 
from bended knees, falling with hysteric transports of wild 
and delirious joy, into each other's arms. JSTo mortal tongue 
or pen can describe the overflowing ecstasies of these naked 
and scourged bondmen, now standing up as British freemen — 
slaves no more. They sun^f, they cried, they danced, and 
thus in wild and rapturous joy they passed the terrific bourne 
so long wished for by them — so long feared and dreaded by 
the guilty white man. But the first drop of the white man's 
blood has not yet been shed, by this deeply abused and 
emancipated people. Many thousands of these long-injured 
people are now proprietors of two, four, eight, ten, and fifteen 
acres of laud. Their wives and children stay at home and 
cultivate and raise enough for the family's food and clothing ; 
the father works, or some older sons, on some neighboring 
plantation — the money he or they earn pays for land : — his 
wife and children create subsistence from his own fields. 
Hundreds of schools and many churches, have sprung up for 
the adults and colored children. Once the planters raised 
nothing but sugar, molasses, rum, and coffee, and bought all 
their provisions from abroad ; now the laborers' families raise 
provisions on the island. Less sugar, to be sure, is raised, 
but two-thirds of the sugar goes, as a money question, further 
now than all did in slavery, as more than one-third, some- 
times one-half, was spent for provisions which are now raised 
at home. So they have gone on with remarkable prosperity. 



306 ALT AN STEWART. 

both master and freedmen. The plantations have risen, 
some twenty, thirty, and others forty and fifty, and many 
sixty and sixty-five per cent, above their slave value. In fact, 
the English government now feel that they acted unwisely 
in giving the twenty millions of pounds ; for the lands alone 
of those slave islands are now worth more than slaves and 
land both were in 1830. Indeed it is a matter of regret now, 
that the slave had not received what England had to give. 

On the same day, the fetters fell from the slaves of South 
Africa; from the Cape of Good Hope, six hundred miles 
north, inland, the institution expired on the last acre of 
British supremacy — from ocean to ocean. On the 1st of 
April, 1844, England, by her East India Company's mighty 
powers, struck slavery dead through her Oriental regions — 
twelve millions of slaves, serfs, and caste — crushed beings, 
lifted their unfettered hands to God to bless his power, and 
that of England's, which, amidst a population of one hundred 
millions of Eastern Indies, left them in chains to pine no more. 
Has not England most gloriously, in thirty years, from 1814 
to 1844, performed her high and glorious undertaking with 
these United States in the treaty of Ghent ? Has she not 
blotted out that great dishonor of our race from her vast 
dominions ? What have we done to fulfill our part of this 
great national covenant ? When the Abolitionists presented 
from year to year, petitions clothed in dignified and respect- 
ful language, praying Congress to abolish the internal 
slave trade between the States, in the Territory of Florida, 
and in the District of Columbia, signed by tens of thou- 
sands of names, unread, undebated, unprinted, and uncon- 
sidered, they were laid upon the table. This being esteemed 
too a great a privilege for humanity, during three years, 
these petitions, by a rule of the House of Representa- 
tives, were forbidden a reception by the House. The 
Abolitionists, for endeavoring to fulfill the paramount law of 



SLAVERY IN NEW JEE3EY. 307 

the land, the 10th article of the treaty, were defamed in 
Congress and out, their names cast out as fanatical and 
incendiary, they were mobbed by the countenance of men in 
high places, their churches destroyed, their halls burnt, and 
their people imprisoned and murdered ! If slavery not only 
forbids and restrains a nation from performhig its most 
solemn treaties, but violates them, and thus endangers the 
peace, prosperity, and happiness of the whole j^eople, can it 
be doubted that it contravenes the 1st article of your Consti- 
tution, Avhich assures us that man has the right of " acquiring, 
possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing, and of 
obtaining safety and happiness.'''' 

Can safety^ property^ and happiness be maintained by men 
or nations who violate faith, who are truce-breakers ? Is 
not that slavery which hazards the peace of the nation by re- 
fusing obedience to the highest law of individual and national 
preservation, something that is contrary to the great law of 
nature? Every branch of our government — legislative, 
judicial or executive — should have lent every encouragement 
and aid in their power to the removal of this cancer, batten- 
ing with its roots in the jugulars of the Republic. But in- 
stead of presidential and gubernatorial messages urging Con- 
gress and the State legislatures, under this standing para- 
mount treaty-laAV, to do all in their power within their re- 
spective jurisdictions to abolish slavery, slavery has mounted 
the highest places of power, and has rescinded and annulled 
the treaty, and compelled presidents and governors, by mes- 
sages and inaugurals to forewarn the legislative assembhes 
and the people to violate this treaty, and turn their entire 
power and legislative action against those who had petitioned 
for the abolition of slavery. Is not this high treason against 
the State and man's best interests ? Has not slavery caused 
these high dignitaries to commit official perjury? And is 
not such a terrible institution hostile to man, his safety and 



308 ALVAN STEWART. 

happiness as a man and as a citizen, and is it not within the 
inhibition of the first section of your Constitution, and does 
it not violate that freedom and independence conferred upon 
him by the law of nature, and does it not stand between you 
and the enjoyment of the first article ? 

What is that law of nature by which all men are made 
free and independent ? Allow me to define it as I under- 
stand it. The law of nature is that great omnipotent law of 
God, ever in full force amidst the busy hum of thousands in 
your emporium, or in the solitudes of the wilderness, on the 
sea, or on the land ; it follows man down into the mines of 
the earth, it ascends with him to the Chimborazo's top ; it has 
no latitude, no longitude, no length, no breadth ; it is truth, 
and is as earnest in its pleadings, amidst the inhospitalities of 
l^olar cold, as in the boundless prodigalities of the bui-ning 
tropics ; it is the everlasting justice and mercy of the Eternal ; 
it is the great imprint of God upon man, which can never be 
counterfeited, erased, or repealed; it is so immutable that it 
never changes, mem cannot repeal it ; it is a part of each hu- 
man being's inheritance, which, without crime he can never 
spend or squander; it abides with him, though unhonored, 
under all circumstances of bereavement, and guarantees man's 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable. 

The law of nature is taken up and recognized by the good 
people of New Jersey, in the most solemn form as a rule of 
action, in her organic law. This first section declares that 
amongst man's inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the 
right of acquiring property. What, can a slave have safety, 
or acquire property? he who is nothing but a chattel, a 
piece of property himself, can he acquire safety ? No ; of 
all the innumerable murders committed by white men and 
women upon the slaves of the South (and there is no day 
goes by in which there is not more than one murder in each 
slave State, on an average), not a single white person has 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 309 

yet been executed for the murder of the colored man. The 
white is frequently hung in the slave States for stealing 
slaves, but not for Idlling them. Oh, sum of all human vil- 
lainies, let the curse of God rest upon it, let every wind of 
heaven be charged with its destruction, every rising sun be 
its destroyer, the rolling seasons its executioner ! 

Slavery is the exact converse of every proposition con- 
tained in the first article of your new Constitution. 

Slavery throws down every human right in the market 
to the highest bidder. If slavery (or semi-slavery, in 
the shape of children of slaves, in this State continuing 
to be slaves, males until twenty-five, and females until 
twenty-one years of age, and this operation is to pass 
under the name of being born free, and persons forty-one 
years old and upward be retained as slaves for fife), and 
slaveholders are to stand asserting their wicked poAver, then 
the first great section of your Constitution is converted into 
a vapid and senseless abstraction. Shall your Constitution 
be withered by the power of slavery ? Shall this Constitu- 
tion stand gilt with the gold of high pretension, while within 
it is full of ravening and dead men's bones ? Shall this slave 
institution continue to exist in hostility to so plain a provi- 
sion ? This frightful institution claims to exist, by the apo- 
logy of some, since the 2d of last September, even since this 
Constitution went into operation, without a platform on 
which to place its accursed feet. The best foundation I can 
see for slavery in this State, at this time, and the length of 
time it should continue, should be the amount of time it 
would take the people of this State to recover from their 
astonishment at its inexpressible impudence. 

The institution of slavery is the converse proposition of the 
Ten Commandments — it is the essence of injustice and mean- 
ness in its most compact form ; and it would seem that no 
nation not struck down by a mortal paralysis, would wait a 



:S10 ALVAN STEWAHT. 

moment before rising and felling the monster, the first in- 
stant they discovered his seven heads and ten horns emerg- 
ing from the forlorn regions of " Eldest Hell.'' 

Which shall stand — the great written, organic law of 
liberty, or the unwritten and inexpressible villainy of 
slavery ? Which shaU stand — the natural God-inherited 
rights of life, liberty, property, safety, and happiness for each 
human being in New Jersey, or that of an institution which 
subverts every object for which a good constitution was ever 
made ? 

A constitution, ex vi termini^ imports a covenant made by 
the whole people, with each person, and by each person with 
the whole peoj^le, to protect and defend their God-inherited 
rights of life, liberty, property, and safety from violence and 
invasion. A constitution is made for the defence of human 
rights, and not for their destruction ; a constitution is the 
highest evidence of man's weakness ; and intended to com- 
bine society's strength for the defence of each individual. 
How is it possible that a constitution, whether of this State, 
or of the United States, which was created on purpose for 
the protection of life, liberty, property, and safety, can exist 
and be entitled to the name, without overthrowing every in- 
stitution, villainy or stratagem created or made, intending to 
cheat man out of life, liberty, property, safety, and happiness ? 

The men Avho framed the old State Constitution of New 
Jersey, in the year 1776, were not such hypocrites as to 
stamp that Constitution with the protection of human rights. 
No, they said nothing on that subject, for they knew there 
was no inconsiderable class of the population of this State 
Avho were wedded to the insatiable desire of appropriating 
the labor of others, without compensation, by compelling 
negroes, mulattoes, mustees, and Indians, to work for them 
for nothing, and make chattels or property of their persons, 
their wives and children — yes, of those human sinews, as a 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 311 

marketable commodity, men were to be degraded and for- 
bidden, under penalties of thirty-nine lashes, from wandermg 
from their masters' homes on Sunday, for the infliction of 
which stripes, by the order of a justice of the peace, a con- 
stable did, and yet does receive from the master the sum of 
$1 for performing the brutish service. To add to all other 
ignoble acts on the part of the State, was a provision forbid- 
ding emancipation of the slave, if forty years old or more, for 
fear of the distant contingency, that this freedman might be- 
come a public burden to the township, by being a pauper in 
his old age ; and rather than subject the towns to that, they 
preferred to let the man and his posterity remain in slavery. 
Such was the gross inhumanity of the age ; thus cheap were 
human rights held by the people of this State at large. 
Gross inhumanity to the master himself; it took away his 
locus penitentim^ his space of repentance. And if slavery is 
not abolished, this infamous provision is still in full force. The 
reason why slavery w^as not abolished by name in Massachu- 
setts and New Jersey is to be found in this, that the con- 
scious shame of the fact restrained the framers of those con- 
stitutions from immortalizing their own disgrace by ad- 
mitting slavery's previous existence, in and by its distinct 
abolition. They therefore put it to death by suffocation by 
the hands of liberty, without a name, hoping the judiciaries 
w^ould attend its funeral and burial, and forever remove its 
unsightly corpse from the sight and smell of men, with as 
little parade as possible ; and further hoj^ing that a generous 
posterity would disbeUeve their early public history, and 
consider it as apocryphal and slanderous of their illustrious 
ancestors, as the constitutions of these States do not so 
much as name so great a moral blemish on their historical 
fame. 

Said Mr. S., by the statute of this State (Avhich he con- 
tended was repealed by the first section of the new Constitu- 



312 ALVAN STEWART. 

tion) passed February, 1820, all children born of slaves after 
1804 were to be free, but were to belong as sen-ants, and to 
be held as apprentices, and bound out by the overseers of the 
poor to the owners of their mothers, their administrators, 
executors and assiixns— males till 25, and females until 'Jl. 
These persons were property in every sense of the word, 
until their time expired ; they are purchased and sold in 
private and at [.ublic auction, pass under the insolvent acts 
and bankrupt acts, the same as oxen and horses. Wliat is 
the dilTerence between this :\Iary Tebout and hermoth«»r? 
Nothinir, until Mary has passed 2\ years of unrewarded tnjl. 
She is called a servant, she is said to be born free, is now but 
19, and has been sold three limes. The southern States call 
slavi-ry involuntary servitude, or persons l>ound to service by 
tin' l:iws of the States. The domestic institutions of the 
South, the j)atriarchal institutions and the peculiar institu- 
tions of the South — by such soft hyi>ocritical use of words, 
do they mean to make the ?!ni,dish lantruajxe a partner in their 
guilt, by usini^ it as a cloak to conceal the hideous visage of 
that frightful monstrr, whose mouth is filled with spikes, and 
face covered with iron wrinkles, with burning balls of fire for 
eyes, whose every hair is a hissing serpent, whose fetid breath 
would kill the Hohun Upas, whose touch is ruin, whose cm- 
brace is destruction, who is fe«l on blo()d, tears and sweat, 
whip-extracted, from unpaid toil — her music is unpitied 
groans of broken hearts, of ruined hopes, and blasted expec- 
tations. 

Away with such artifice to shiild deformity, by those cruel 
and wicked States, boasting of their republicanism, and riehts 
of man. Even New York and Pennsylvania once held per- 
sons bom free, whose mothers were slaves, the males till 28, 
and females till 25, as slaves. Terrible nick-naming of human 
rights, as in bold tlerision of them. These New Jersey 
'servants are property, in its I'm*^" '•m^e, slaves for years, the 



SLALEEY IX NEW JERSEY. 313 

parents deprived of all jurisdiction of their offspring, all 
direction of their education, and paternal tenderness; the law 
confininnr these poor servants, and obliging them to live with 
those who have owned and abused the mother who bore 
them, and are still continuing to hold their parents until 
death, as slaves. The master can sell his servant and horse 
togetlier. This servant-woman at 15, and the male-servant 
at 18, contract marriage, and when the woman is 19, and 
man 22 years of ago, having three little children, the fitheris 
sold to one end of the State, and the mother to the other ; 
their little children left in the street, the mamage relation 
broken, tiie paternal and maternal relation dissolved ; these 
littl(» ones not to see their j)arents for two years or more ; the 
hnsbnrxl cannot see his wife or little ones, nor the wife her 
Imsband or babies for two years to come. Call you this being 
himx J'nc .^ The man is deprived of his Avife, and the wife 
becomes a Midow, and children orj»hans, according to law, 
to satisfy the claims of certain old slaveholders in this State ! 
Is tliis Ix'ing ])orn free ? This looks none like respect for the 
law of nature, by which we ai'c born free and independent. 
We can never honor or resjKH't the new Constitution, till we 
feel there is meariing, power, vitality, in tliose blessed words 
of justice, truth, mercy, freedom, safety; an<l further, feel 
tliat there are no birth-iinpcflimcnts, or interest of others in 
the use of our bodies, inconsistent with our own happiness. 
Each individual should 1)0 left to fullill the object of his mis- 
sion to this world in the best way he may; society should 
not load him with burdens for the benefit of others, but 
should give him every fivcility to run his race of existence, 
with dignity to himself, and thus truly serve the ends of 
society and his own creation, in passing from the great 
eternity of the past into the ilUmitable future. 

Here, we are not left in the dark, as to the meaning of the 
words of the New Jersey new Constitution, for it is almost 

14 



314 ALVAN STEWART. 

an exact copy of the first section of the Massachusetts Con- 
stitution of 1780. The first section of the Massachusetts 
Constitution is in these words : 

" Article 1st. All men are born free and equal, and have 
certain natural, essential, and inalienable rights, among which 
may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their 
lives and liberties ; that of acquiring, possessing, and protect- 
ing property ; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their 
safety and happiness." 

Here Mr. S. asked Mr. Zabriskie, counsel for the claimant 
of Mary Teb«)ut, if he contended there was any difference 
between the two sections of these Constitutions? Mr. 
Zabriskie replied, he did not. 

The New Jersey Constitution has in the 10th Article 
these words : " The common law and statute laws now in full 
force, not repugnant to this Constitution, shall remain in 
force until they expire by their own limitation, or be altered 
or repealed by the legislature." 

Further, Mr. S. said that he rehed on a portion of the 
Constitution of the United States, for emancipation, by this 
honorable court, to wit, the Magna Charta portion, where it 
asserts " that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or 
property, without due process of law." 

The case of Wincheudon v. Iladfield, 4^A Mass. Rep.., 123, 
is the case of one Edoin Landon, in relation to the question 
as to which of the towns should support him, he having been 
a slave in Massachusetts, and sold eleven times, enlisted twice 
in the Revolutionary army, the second time for three years, 
his master receiving his bounty and his wages — also, A:th 
Mass.., 539. Chief Justice Parsons decided in this cause that 
slavery had been abolished by the first section of the Massa- 
chusetts Constitution, as had been decided in former unre- 
ported cases. This is legal authority, in eflTect, on the very 
words of the Kew Jersey Constitution, 1st article ; Massa- 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 315 

chusetts has shed from the lamp of her judiciary as pure, 
bright and steady a light as any court in the new world, and 
has done her fair share in elevating the science of the law. I 
repose with great confidence uj^on this authority ; it covers 
the whole controversy. 

The case of the slave 3Ied^ 18th PlclKering^ 193, known 
under the name of Commonwealth vs. Thomas Avcs, pre- 
sented within the last half dozen years this same great ques- 
tion collaterally. The argument was elaborate, and the 
opinion of Chief Justice Shaw luminous. 
* Chief Justice Shaw says, Massachusetts in 1641 abohshed 
slavery, except of captives taken in lawful icar or guilty of 
crime. But slavery grew up in Massachusetts, and in 1703 
an act was passed in that colony, imposing restrictions on the 
transmission of aged and infirm slaves ; and by an act of 
1705, a duty w^as levied on the importation of slaves, showing 
slavery in full force until abolished by their Constitution of 
1780. The Chief Justice, in this case, says it is now well 
established law that slavery w^as abolished by the Constitu- 
tion of 1780, and before the adoption of the Constitution of 
the United States, slavery being repugnant to the principles 
of justice, of nature, and the declaration of rights, which are 
a component part of the Constitution of Massachusetts. 
Slavery, said he, crept into Massachusetts by force of custom 
existins: in the West Indies and in several other States, 
encouraged by the mother country (miserable apology better 
than none, even in Massachusetts). 

Chief Justice Shaw says, *' Slavery is a relation founded 
in force and not in right ; existing, where it does, by force 
of positive law, and not recognized and founded in natural 
rights." Slavery, he says, " is contrary to natural rights, to 
the principles of justice and humanity." He then says, 
" Bond slavery cannot exist in this Commonweahh, because 
it is contrary to natural right, repugnant to the Constitution 



316 ALVAN STEWART. 

and law, designed to secure the liberty and rights of all 
persons who come within the limits of this State, as entitled 
to the protection of law." 

Bnt what case can I have stronger than the opinion of Chief 
Justice Marshall, himself a slaveholder ? Borne down by 
slaveholding construction as he was, still his innate integrity 
triumphed over cultivated wrong, and compelled liim to 
define slavery as contrary to the law of nature, for the 
definition of slavery by the civil law, showed it an institution 
contrary to the law of nature, which law of nature New 
Jersey has adopted. In case of the Antelo^ye^ 10th W7ieat07i^ 
120, Chief Justice Marshall says, " That slavery is contrary 
to the law of nature will scarcely be denied ; that every man 
has a natural right to the fruits of his own labor is generally 
admitted, and that no other person can rightfully deprive him 
of those fruits, and appropriate them against his Avill, seems 
the necessary result of that admission." Chief Justice Mar- 
shall quotes the definition of slavery in the Latin from the 
civil law, which, with his own opinion, would seem to put the 
question in this case for ever to rest. It is this, " Servitiis 
est constitutio juris gentiian qua quis Domino alieno contra 
NATURAM subjicittir.^^ Slavery is an institution by the laws 
of nations, by which one is subjected to another man, as 
master, contrary to nature. Slavery strikes down and repeals, 
if it could, the law of nature referred to in the 1st article 
of your Constitution ; what can be stronger and more com- 
plete ? 

Here Mr. Stewart gave way for an adjournment until 3 p.m., 
for dining. 

The court being present at 3 o'clock, p.m., Mr. Stewart 
resumed by saying : Has any lawyer the courage to say that 
the legislature of New Jersey could create ihe institution of 
slavery to-day in defiance of the new Constitution ? Perhaps 
most, if not all, would say No. Why could not the legisla- 



SLAVERY IN NEW JEESEY. 317 

tare enact such a law so as to create the relation of slave nnd 
master? It would be correctly answered, and by all, that it 
would be repugnant to the new Constitution and its lirst 
section. Do not we discover that a law sustaininc^ slavery is 
equally repugnant to the new Constitution, whether passed 
ten years before it, or ten years after it ? and that the repug- 
nance is not a question of past or present time ? If it is 
repugnant, it is equally so in the one case as the other — "it 
is so odious nothing but positive law can sustain it," says Lord 
Mansfield. 

Mr. S. said that he had confessed himself to have much 
respect for a heing so highly honored as man by his Maker, a 
being created in the image of God, who showed at all times 
the grandeur of his descent, and the illustriousness of his 
lineage by that great unimpeachable record written upon his 
countenance sublime, by the finger of God, which no poverty, 
sorrow, or crime, conld erase : its marks of origin Avere open 
to all, read of all, and should be comprehended by all. In 
the first place we must look at the immense natural wealth, 
or God-given possessions, which belong to the meanest man, 
who prints the green earth with his foot, or drinks from its 
waters, and renews li!e every moment from the unbought 
atmosphere— is fanned by the wings of the wind, cheered 
with the eye-possession of the universe ; yes, his every-day 
existence could not be sustained, at a less expense than the 
fitting up of two worlds, for his accommodation, the earth 
and sun ; the bread he eats, the wool, the flax, and cotton he 
wears, is warmed into life by rays of light from the sun, sent 
over ninety millions of miles in profusion, without stint, each 
ray having its definite olhce and distinct commission to aid to 
life, strength and joy, a single human behig. If there were 
but one man on this globe, these vast structures of two 
worlds must be reared in all their architectural grandeur and 
fitness. This globe must revolve around on its own axis 



818 ALVAN STEWART. 

every twenty-four hours, and slioot along upon the vast plain 
of the ecliptic, at the inconceivable rate of sixty-eight thou- 
sand miles per hour. Man perishes, if the globe were to 
revolve around the sun at the rate of thirty-four thousand 
miles per hour ; man could not live in these regions with a 
year of seven hundred and thirty days, with the unbroken 
severities of a double winter, or the scorching heat of a pro- 
tracted summer. 

The outlay of Almighty power, which sends this noble 
earth careering round the sun with such prodigious force, 
and brings it back to the same point, in absolute space with 
infinite precision, with the punctuality of God, is a portion of 
each man's inheritance ; and all the powers ever displayed 
by man, exerted by beasts, felt from winds, or overwhelmed 
by tornadoes, or moved in tempests, or lifted or sunk by 
earthquakes, swept by tides, or driven by inundations, put 
forth since the morning of creation, would not furnish a 
sufficient force, to propel our globe on its everlasting journey, 
a single day. Yet for man these high demonstrations are 
made, to fit him up an abode with the finish of Omnipotence, 
commensurate with his every want ; it is his God-inherited 
estate ; and were the poorest man on earth to exchange that 
estate, for the power of Bonaparte, when all Europe shook 
beneath his tread, and trembled at his power, this poor 
man would be undone, by the exchange ; the property is too 
great for any one to buy of another ; this is the benevolence 
of Heaven to its honored creature, man. When each man's 
God-inherited estate is reckoned and computed, though pos- 
sessing nothing else, and compared with that of any other 
man's God-inherited estate, they are equal; and if one pos- 
sess a million of pounds, and the other no money, still when 
their whole possessions are considered, one has one hundred, 
and the other but one hundred and one. This proposition or 
statement will forever vindicate the goodness of Heaven, and 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 310 

show the absohite equality of all men, if considered possession- 
wise. 

Therefore it seems to me, that the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence in asserting that all men are created free and equal, is 
true as a proposition, and is not a rhetorical flourish, but a 
sublime estimate, no less grand than true, when we refer to 
the vast possessions of each human being; and that any 
accidental variance by the acquisitions of one, of more wealth 
than another, does not disturb the great result any more than 
the dust which may fall upon one of the scales shall change 
their general equipoise. 

All men are created equal, and shall a being of such 
amazing dignity and immense possessions, of such grand 
lineage, be made a slave? God forbid. Equality, life, 
liberty of locomotion, the rights of acquiring happiness in 
every way we see fit, not violating the rights of our brother 
man, or the edicts of heaven, with the God-inherited estate, 
constitute what your Constitution and that of Massachusetts 
and the Declaration of Independence, describe as rights i?i- 
alienoMe. Is it not so ? What kind of a deed must that be 
which should attempt to convey my right and title in the 
wind, atmosphere, earth, and my share in the power that 
propels this ponderous globe around the sun ? — my title to 
the exhaustless fires and light of that great luminary, and of 
those rays which might fall on me or on the earth and pro- 
duce my raiment and food ? Is there not deep and philoso- 
phical truth in asserting the inalienability of rights hke 
these, so essential to man's existence, and his everlasting 
accountability to the Father of all, for his abounding munifi- 
cence, with which man can invest no other being, or divest 
himself. Can it not truly be said that a being who is born 
to such great possessions, is born free and i7idepe?2de72t .» 
The greatest blot on American character is, to have been 
deluded by slaveholders into a behef that those great words 



820 ALVAN. STEWAET. 

expressed by the men, who wrote and adopted the Declara- 
tion of our Independence, were mere abstractions and the 
flourish of oratory, where they declared the great self-evident 
truth " that all men are created free and equal, and are 
possessed of certain inalienable rights, among which are hfe, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and that the same 
were meaningless. These truths are self-evident, and why ? 
They are evident in every breath of air we respire through 
our lungs, every step we take, in every object we behold, 
printed on every tree, written on every cloud, bursting forth 
in every falling drop of rain, reflected in every ray of light, 
by which the universe is Avarmed, and in glory lit up, and by 
the succession of day and night, summer and winter, seed- 
time and harvest ; in fact, its self-evidence is stereotyped in 
eternal beauty upon the earth, the sea, the mountain, the 
valley, upon the moon, the sun, and stars of heaven. This 
constitutes the great record of ever-during self -evidence^ that 
all men are created free and equal, and are possessed of 
certain inalienable rights, etc. 

This rises to a moral, if not a mathematical demonstration ; 
and that a great nation should, so far as individuals, forget 
the dignity of their origin, the vastness of their inalienable 
possessions, and should hunt for arguments to force their 
debasement and search for reasons to undervalue such a 
being as man, especially in a great selfocracy^ where each 
man is a sovereign, is, among aU strange things, one which 
would exceed belief were we not met by the strange pheno- 
menon at every turn of human afiliirs. Had we incorporated 
the divine sentiments of our great Declaration into our 
minds, as an everlasting flrst-principle, and lived under the 
sway of its glorious dominion, no slavery would then have 
disgraced our magnificent country ; no half cultivated, forlorn 
and deserted sections of slave States, would have told the 
world their melancholy tale. Ko coffled gang of slaves would 



SLAVERY IN NEW JKIiSKY. ?,2l 

have dishonored our nation, driven from State to State, for 
sale. Xo, our prosperity, riehes, glory and moral elevation, 
would have presented so imposing an example of man's eapa- 
bilities for his own advancement, that king-craft aristocracies 
and all of that coarse mode of working, taxing and governing 
men, as family-jobs, would, long ere this, have been thrown 
into the rear of the camp of human jDrogress, and new forms 
of self-government Avould have succeeded, in which the 
governed should have been the governors, and the interest 
of the governed Avould have prevailed, in the true advance- 
ment of the human race. 

We have terrible penalties to pay, for abandoning princi- 
ples so glorious, so wise, of which we have had a full view, 
and for saying, most shamefully, that the Dex^laration of 
Independence is a formula and not serious, the poetry of 
excited minds. By thus forsaking these great truths, certain 
and as practical as the decalogue, we fell back into the arms 
of a low, base expediency, and re-lived forms of crimes and 
follies of former ages, holding these subUme truths as abstrac- 
tions, fitted only for the meridian of heaven, with angels for 
their operatives, to carry them out, while we fed ourselves 
upon the husks of former absurdities, rejecting truth, holding 
it too beautiful for practical use. 

Will not this court set the nation the shining example of 
doing right, on this question, by acting up to the full measure 
of their judicial and moral power ? 

A nation may lose its hberty in a day, and not miss it in 
a hundred years ; this nation lost its true liberty, the clear 
light, the first moment the great words of the Declaration of 
Independence ceased to be honored and respected as house- 
hold, e very-day truth, the fundamental rules of action, as the 
political and moral mathematics of the nation. 

Although we make several hundred volumes of fourth of 
July orations, poetical self-glorifications and boasting eulo^ 

1-4* 



ALVAN STEWART. 

giums for the home-market, yearly, in which the most beauti- 
ful descriptions are given of the dress and form of liberty, as 
a wonderful unknown goddess, and amuse ourselves in 
describing her altar, the costliness of her sacrifices, and the 
riches of her perfume, and the curling smoke of her incense ; 
yet if in the everyday intercourse of man with man, of courts 
of justice with causes, in expounding the doctrines of the great 
declaration and of legislation, in framing new rules of action, 
we should with one consent, have asserted that in the 
Declaration of Independence and other national and State 
Constitutions containing the same thoughts, that liberty was 
sincere, in declaring the freedom and equality of all men, and 
the inalienability of the rights, of Hfe, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness, we should not have lost liberty ; for not so doing, 
we have lost liberty, though we do not miss it ; we have only 
liberty's casket, but the jewel is gone ; we are playing and 
satisfying ourselves with forms when the substance has 
departed. We make the loud acclaim, Ave fire the cannon of 
salutation, crackers burst under our feet, our toasts may be 
drank in three times three, in the wildest uproar of animal 
excitement ; still these demonstrations are worse than sense- 
less, because they make us think we are true believers in 
liberty and the divine dignity of man, while we are only 
high-heeled hypocrites and fanatics, spinning in concentric 
circles, like brain-turned dervishes around an abstraction of 
liberty, being neither flesh nor spirit, being the great indefi- 
nable^ our adoration increasing with our ignorance, until the 
beatitude of our Avorship is made complete in the perfect 
idealess. Still, for a pretence, Ave make long speeches about 
Republicanism and Democracy, A\diile Ave haA^e nailed and 
crucified, in and through our colored brother. Liberty on the 
cross. We have so long been absent from true liberty, that 
we should require a formal introduction before Ave should 
dare address her, for she ia not that tawdry dressed cyprian 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 323 

bearing her name, who had sold her cliarms to dcmnccoiruos, 
pimps, panders, pirates, buccaneers and slaveholders, wliip in 
hand, who have declared that slavery is the chief corner- 
stone of our republican institutions : while the clergy of the 
south have most impiously averred slavery to be a Bible, 
God-honored, Christian institution, to be kept. Shaniclul 
impiety and desecration of the fountain of Eternal truth. 

The court will pardon me while we look for a moment at 
the sublime teaching of that wonderful and holy book, the 
Bible, so often lugged in to uphold piracy at the expense of 
the Eternal's justice and man's happiness. The Almighty 
has done a thousand fold more, to express his infinite abhor- 
rence of slavery, than of all other crimes and offences against 
his law. He has suspended the laws of nature, and in one 
instance of time, smote two and a half millions of people with 
death, and caused the sea itself to retreat before the fugitive 
slave, and made, as predicated on these amazing exercises of 
power, a direct revelation of himself, and immediately caused 
our revealed religion to be produced, to express his everlast- 
ing detestation of a crime which would unthrone Him, and 
crush his creature man, and place him beside the beast of the 
field. Our maker destroyed the first edition of mankind. In 
the second emission and pubhcation of our race, Egypt became 
the schoohnaster nation of the human race, and the great 
instructor of mankind. The nations of the earth, on camels 
and dromedaries, came, in the infancy of antiquity, to Egypt, 
to exchange their rude materials and ignorance for the 
Egyptian works of art and knowledge. In fact, no opinion 
was considered worthy of general acceptance, by the surround- 
ing barbarians, unless it had an Egyptian indorsement, and 
their wase men's stamp and mark upon, it. 

It appeared that the Israelites, in near four hundred years, 
had increased to two and a half millions of people, as would 
seem from the number of men spoken of in their Exodus. 



324 ALVAN STEWART. 

The Pharaohs had a slave market for centuries. The poor 
Jews had become slaves of the most distressing type. They 
had their overseers, their distinct tasks ; they were scourged, 
and had every mark of human debasement and slavery in- 
flicted. The day of their deUverance was in an age, in which 
the passion for public structures, imposing in their magnitude, 
wonderful in their display of high-wrought efforts of genius, 
constituted the chief employment of their kings, and great 
men, for centuries. The poor Hebrews had often laid their 
petitions before Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron, asking to 
be permitted to go into the wilderness, and worship their 
God. But Pharaoh, as a slaveholder, stood between this 
people and their conscience, and refused to let them go. 
Slavery strikes down the rights of conscience always, for there 
is not a slave in the United States, who is informed in any 
reasonable degree in the Christian religion, who does not 
remain in slavery, contrary to the j^lainest teachings of his 
own conscience. The Almighty having warned the Egyptian 
government of the great crime of holding men in bondage, 
was determined, in the early ages of mankind, to settle the 
question of his infinite abhorrence of slavery, in a manner so 
elementary and signal, that the stamp of His finger-marks 
should remain unerasable through all coming ages. For 
slavery overthrows the will of the victim, and the claim of 
the Almighty to the adoration of his creatures ; and no power 
can get in between God and man, and interfere on this sub- 
ject, unless it is slavery. Slavery breaks down the will, 
volition, and choice of its victim ; the slaveholder steps in 
between the slave and his Maker, and says, oh, slave, talk 
not of conscience, your religion, or your God ; do my will, 
or die ; my will is your law, and not your God's ; my wiU 
you must obey, or die.* Slavery always disputes our Maker's 
supremacy ; warning after warning, miracle aftei- miracle, had 
been lost upon the obduracy of Egypt's king. 



SLAVERY IN KKW .IKKSKY. 325 

One morning, as the population of tliat kingdom of fil'iccii 
millions of people arose and looked at their beloved Nile, lo ! 
and behold, it was one vast river of blood, from the cataracts 
where its tumbling torrents of blood fell in mighty roar, and 
pursued their sweeping course for 600 miles to its seven 
mouths, where the Mediterranean, receiving its tribute from 
this ancient servant, blushed for twenty leagues around, at 
Pharaoh's impudence. The stranger from afar, the traders, 
seekers of knowledge, and the citizens, stood that livelong 
day, and wondered at the bloody Nile ; and as reasons were 
asked and given, I think I hear them say, the reason why the 
Nile runs blood is that Pharaoh holds the Hebrews as slaves, 
and the Hebrews' God demands their release, and shows his 
anger and his power at Pharaoh's refusal. The stranger 
would carry this news to the utmost bounds of Uving man, 
saying, one entire day I saw the Nile run blood, to express 
the abhorrence of the Hebrews' God against the crime of 
slavery. 

Again, the heavens were darkened at noon by the gyrations 
of armies of locusts, which shut out the sun, and they con- 
sumed the vegetation of this fertile land ; men cried for mercy, 
and in a few hours this army of destructive locusts was carried 
on the wings of a strong Avest wind into the depths of the 
Red Sea, not one left. The Egyptian and the stranger knew 
that the Hebrews' God had done this, to cause these poor 
slaves to be delivered from the mighty monarch's cruel 
power. 

On a certain other day the obstinate Pharaoh refused 
after many promises to let the poor Hebrew slaves go free. 
It is noon ; the burning power of a June sun strikes the land; 
anon, all eyes in Egypt are turned to a black cloud rising out 
of the west, over the Lybian desert. This was the first 
thunder-storm in Egypt, and the last, for it neither rains nor 
hails in Egypt, owing to the grt^at Lybian desert of sand on 



326 ALVAN STEWART. 

the west, and the Arabian desert on the east, as philosophers 
suppose. It skirts the western heavens, and the terrific 
clouds raise themselves higher and higher; men turn pale ; 
anon the low and solemn tones of thunder are heard ; men 
tremble and say it is the voice of the slaves' God— in a mo- 
ment the flashes of forked lightning play with infinite quick- 
ness, men fall on their knees and declare it is the flashing of 
the angry eyes of the Hebrews' God at the Egyptians' cru- 
elties. The clouds rise to the high altitude of noon ; the 
lightning, the winds, and roaring thunder send consternation 
into the hearts of afirighted men. It appears like night, 
nature in agony, men fear to speak, and beheve tliey are on 
the eve of doom ; men and beasts hide themselves in extreme 
terror ; the thunder makes the earth tremble from pole to 
pole; the pyramids rock from their deep foundations, the 
rains descend, the hail beats the earth, fire and ice leap from 
the clouds, Avhile the lightning strikes down the trees, plays 
round the pyramid tops, smites the sphinx, and runs along 
upon the ground, men in agony, praying for deliverance ; 
Pharaoh and his court lie prostrate in the palace, the earth 
seems shaken out of its place, and all nature in convulsions. 
The king implores mercy, and the Father of all hears, pities, 
anddeUvers the fiiithless king and people, and ere the sun 
went down, that storm and desolation had forever gone by, 
and the last cloud sunk below the horizon in the Red Sea, 
while the beautiful sun rolls down the Avestern heavens, smil- 
ing in mercy from and beyond the dark solitudes of the in- 
terminable Lybian sands. This storm, all men knew, was an 
evidence of God's displeasure at slavery. But Pharaoh 
would not let the people go. 

It is in Egypt and is midnight when the young wife, but 
two years married, awoke and placed her hand on the 
shoulder of her youthful husband ; he was as cold as marble, 
he would not awake at her mournful cry — lie was dead, he 



SLAVEEY IN NEW JERSEY. 327 

was the first born of his parents. She arose in wild despair, 
she Ht a flambeau, and looked at her little babe on the mat- 
tress ; the fixed smile was there, rigid in death, never to be 
relaxed ; he was the first born of his parents ; slie flios to 
her filth er's and mother's bed in the next room, slic awakes 
her fiither, but none but the archangel can arouse her 
mother from death's sleep, most profound ; she was the fii-st 
born of her parents. She sends her man-servant to her 
neighbor for help in this awful hour ; the servant enters the 
neighbor's, a light is there, wailing and horror meet him. 
The aged father of the second house was the first born of his 
parents, and is dead, and the infant first born is also dead. 
No contortion, no groan was ever heard of all w^ho fell in a 
single instant, on that dreadful night ; they lay with all the 
peace of eternal sleep upon them. The servant finds another 
servant in this second house of death, they go out, they hear 
the survivors' wail, and see the baleful torch lit up in every 
house around ; they ascend a tower on the banks of the Nile, 
high above and all around, as in a moment, for forty miles, as 
fiir as eye can measure light upon the earth's dark face, the 
beams of the death torch of that direful hour from all direc- 
tions strike their wretched eyes. The lamentations were 
loud and long ; and when the morning sun arose, the angel 
of death for long hours had been gone from the abodes of 
man and beast, and there was not one house in all the land 
of Egypt in which there was not one dead, or about two and 
half millions — one-sixth of the people, or a fife of one of 
Egypt's slaveholders had been taken, for each Hebrew slave 
detained. No mistaking the power and will of the God of 
the bondmen longer, and the affi-ighted Pharaoh and his 
court cry to these slaves, " up and begone, or we are all dead 
men." The funeral, the most terrible in time, then followed. 
Nothing like these deaths or funerals in the history of our 
race. 



328 ALVAN BTEWAET. 

The fugitive slaves had marched to the northeast and 
reached the Red Sea, and were in great fear, reposing on its 
banks between two mountains, the one on their right, and the 
other on their left. Solemn hours ! As they rested we may 
feign that young Hebrews climb to the mountain tops, and 
saw the rising clouds of dust on the southwestern edge 
of the heavens. That army is led on by Pharaoh's gene- 
rals, of chariots and cavalry, the notes of trumpets fell 
upon their ears, and the young men cry to their friends be- 
low, " They come ! they come ! we hear their trumpets on 
the plain!" Then the desponding fugitives cried, "Were 
there no graves in Egypt ?" The night came, portentous ; a 
mighty cloud rested between the slaveholders and the 
trembling fugitives. On the side next to the poor slaves, the 
cloud beamed as from a pillar of fire, all light, the smile of 
heaven. On the other side of the cloud the pursuing slave- 
holders saw it all dark, lugubrious, presaging to them the 
horrors of their last day. This was another finger-mark of 
Divine power. The morning lowered, and, in clouds, to 
these sad and impious slaveholders heavily brought on that 
day whose end they would never see. The trembling fugi- 
tives stood looking nine miles across the intervening Red 
Sea, whose waves broke in melancholy murmurs at their 
feet. Despair was on every face. When Moses spoke, 
" stand still and see the salvation of the Lord," another 
finger-mark of Omnipotence was made, and Moses stretched 
out his rod over the Red Sea, and anon a long line of sub- 
sidence of the waters appears. Every fugitive eye saw it. 
Then the reflowing of waters from that central line, the 
piling of waters follow ; the waters ascend and pile, ascend 
and pile, until the naked bottom across appears with per- 
])endicular water walls of great height, by Omnipotence held 
up, and probably one mile Avide is left like a clean beach. 
The fugitives pasg down on this untravelled road, and finally 



SLAVERY IN NTLW JP:iiSEY. 829 

division after division rose npon the further side. At length 
the weak passed up, the cripple climb the bank, and lo ! there 
see those little orphans pull themselves up by twigs, and that 
poor old man on his crutches, they help pull him up— they 
are all up and over. Xow rises the wildest, grandest, and 
most sublime music which ever burst from human lips— the 
fugitives' song ! The headlong vindictive slaveholders, burn- 
ing with rage, thirsting for revenge, follow on the fugitives' 
track into the sea ; and as they were at the central depths of 
the Red Sea, gravitation was permitted to re-assert her 
ancient law, when down came these mighty mountains of 
waters to their forsaken bed. Pharaoh and his haughty 
hosts expired in the centre of a miracle. For forty years 
the Almighty fed these poor fugitive slaves directly from His 
own table. 

The God of Heaven, as in mercy to man, that he might 
never again commit the atrocious crime involved in slavery^ 
caused Mount Sinai to quake from its deep foundations, and 
amidst the thunders and the hghtnings, the Almighty, with 
his own finger, wrote the tables of the law, his ten eternal 
orders, which are most eminent Anti-Slavery in character, 
that the crime which had shaken Egypt to its foundations, 
might never occur again for want of a Divine prohibition. 
This was the decalogue, " Love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, mind, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself." This 
command obeyed, destroys all the slavery in the world. What 
slaveholder can kindly love his slave unless he manumits him ? 

The preface to these commands, in the sixth verse of the 
fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, " I am the Lord thy God, 
which brought thee out of the laud of Egj-jit, and from the 
house of hondageP 

" Honor thy father and mother." No, says the slave- 
holder, I will sell your father and mother, you must obey 
your master. 



330 ALVAN STEWART. 

" Thou shalt not kill." I will kill, says the slaveholder, if 
it is necessary, by flogging to obtain submission ; or if the 
slave will run from me when I tell him to stop, I will shoot 
and kill him, and Southern law says amen. 

" Thou shalt not commit adultery." I will commit adultery, 
and break the marri.age covenant between my slaves, and 
compel them to marry over w^hen my interest will be pro- 
moted, or separate man and wife by sale or purchase, and 
make them marry again. 

" Thou shalt not steal." I w^ill steal, and appropriate, says 
the slaveholder, all that man hath, all he can earn, and the 
man himself^ when my interest can be promoted thereby. 

"Thou shalt not covet." I will covet that man's or that 
woman's body, and I wdll possess myself of them, and appro- 
priate them to my own use, says the slaveholder. 

Look at the condescension of the Almighty. He made 
^ese poor fugitive slaves the librarians and custodians of 
the revelation of his will to mankind. Slavery treads this 
revelation under foot, and quotes the Bible to prove 
slavery, when there is the most incontestable evidence that 
there never w^ould have been a revelation in the decalogue, 
but as the finishing stroke of those awful wonders and mira- 
cles, on the faith of which our religion rests, all originating, 
converging and terminating in that great fundamental pro- 
position, that God infinitely abhors slavery, because it sup- 
plants his direct authority over the will of His child, and 
throws His child, with an immortal mind, made in his own 
image, into the category of brute-beasts, thus forever over- 
throwing the fundamental relation of God to man, of man to 
his neighbor, and of man to himself To vindicate the 
character, power and justice of the Supreme, and bring man 
home again to his true relations, w^as well worthy of a display 
of such awful power, introducing Himself as God to the 
ancient world. 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 331 

Mr. S. said there was another proposition which he wislicd 
to glance at in passing. That was the Constitution of the 
United States, for were he before the King's Bench, in West- 
minister Hall, he would there insist, 'and he believed with 
entire sucess, that there was not a slave in Xew Jersey, or 
in any slave State, who had been deprived of his liberty 
according to law. I mean slaves as they are generally 
and at large, and not those who have been convicted of 
crunes ; and therefore there is not a slave, if you admit him 
a person, as slaveholders contend, but must be discharged by 
a judge or a court, on being brought before said court on the 
ground that he has never been deprived of his liberty by due 
process of law, according to the Constitution of the United 
States. That record must be produced, originating in a 
decision or an indictment of a grand jury, and the finding of 
a petit jury, and the pronouncing of judgment thereon, 
by a court of competent jurisdiction. This, Sir Edward 
Coke, and Judge Story on Sir Edward's authority, in 
his Commentaries, 440, says is the meaning of due pro- 
cess of law at common law, as used in Magna Charta. 
But I am willing to reduce the character of the court, 
and even strike out the petit and grand jury from the 
instrumentality — and then' I say that "due process of 
law" means a court or some judicial personage, one or 
more making a court, who have adjudicated the man to be 
a slave ; and if that record cannot be found, the man must 
go free ; or the individual must not lose his liberty without 
due process of law. That record cannot be found in this 
land. Will any man pretend that plantation and cart-whip 
discipline is due process of law ? Will any pretend that 
being deprived of the right to learn to read, or write, as in 
some of our States, under the penalty of twenty-five lashes 
on the naked back of the teacher and the taught, is due pro- 
cess of law ? Yes, for the mother to teach her child to spell 



832 ALVAN STEWAET. 

the name of the Saviour, for the second attempt, mother and 
child are to be whipped one hundred lashes ; for the third 
offence, the punishment of death. Is this the due process of 
law, named in the Constitution of the United States ? 
The pursuing of fugitives with bloodhounds cannot be the 
due process of law of the Constitution. 

The separation by sale of husband from wife, and wife 
from husband, and children from both, to suit the con- 
venience of the master, cannot be due process of law? The 
being born of slave mother, on a slaveholder's 23lantation, 
cannot be due process of law ? The being torn away from 
home, kindred and friends, and sent by the middle joassage 
to a slave auction in South Carolina, and sold on the boards 
into hopeless bondage, cannot be due process of law? 

' Is not slavery a punishment or an infliction on men beyond 
the track of the common misfortunes of mankind, of suflicient 
magnitude to have it left to some mortal man, in the shape 
of a justice or judge, to adjudicate a man into the great drag- 
net of slaveiy ? For, we find it takes the strongest judicial 
power in the land to get him out. Slaveholders claim him 
under the word " person " in the Constitution, because they 
say, there is no other word by which they can denote slavery. 
The word person I have, in this argument in relation to due 
process of law, used in the slaveholding sense, which is, after 
all, downright perversion. 

The word person, in the Constitution of the United States, 
means a human being possessed of the natural rights of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The word person 
means a human being in the fullness of his natural rights, 
and nothing more. The Greeks, Romans, and English, 
whether using the word in law or in common parlance, mean 
this, and nothing more ; and you can legally no more express 
the idea of a slave by it than you can that of a king. A man 
who is a slave, according to slave law, has lost his persona ^e^ 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 333 

if I may so speak, and has passed into chattleliood, or tliing- 
hood, and all the rights of person are annihilated, or in a 
state of suspended animation, until the pure air of liberty 
inflates his lungs again. The Constitution of the United 
States is an Anti-Slavery document, in its general spirit and 
tendencies ; and under other auspices and circumstances 
Avould have been called a great act of universal emancipation, 
and have set every slave free in the land, being paramount 
law, Avithout doing the thousandth part of violence in con- 
struction which has been done by a slaveholding interpreta- 
tion, by which it has been made into a slaveholding document, 
to create tlie horrid institution by reenacting the slave-laws 
of the two States of Virginia and Maryland, thereby cover- 
ing the two sections of the District of Columbia, in creating 
and regulating by territorial laws, slavery in eight of the 
new States ; five of which, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, 
Arkansas and Missouri, were not a portion of the United 
States or its territories at the adoption of the Constitution of 
the United States. The Congress of the United States 
under slaveholding dictation created slavery, therefore, in 
Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, a portion of our territory 
at the adoption of the Constitution ; and in tlie other five 
States the nation purchased the territory and created the 
institution in them as territories, and the Congress then 
brought these five slave States into the sisterhood of the 
republic. And now we are told slavery is a State institution, 
and is beyond the reach of any power of Congress, for its 
extermination ; that is, that Congress has power to create 
and fasten this infernal institution on a territory, but has no 
power to abolish it anywhere, after it has enacted it once 
into existence, either in its territorial or State character ; it 
has no power to lop, restrain or eradicate slavery from a 
State or territory, but is bound to foster and nurture it with 
parental care, as one of the patriarchal^ domestic and 2:>eculiar 



334 ALVAN STEWART. 

institutions of the South. Permit me to assert, as it regards 
these States, that Congress had no more power to create 
slavery there in the beginning than it had to create an auto- 
crat in either of those States or territories, in whose hand and 
his heirs all power, legislative, judicial and executive, should 
be centred forever, with full power to sell or dispose of the 
bodies of all the people or inhabitants who should or might 
come within the bounds of his territory or State. For the 
power exercised in the case of slavery by one half of the 
inhabitants over the other, is precisely the same in degree 
and kind as that described, only the number of the autocrats 
is increased. Each autocrat has a less number of subjects, 
but the power exercised is precisely the same in extent, and 
in relation to those on whom it operates, is the same precise 
autocratism, as though there w^as but one despot. Noav I 
deny that Congress has lawful power to do any such thing. 

Many persons run to the Madison papers published in the 
last few years, to ascertain the meaning cf the framers of the 
Constitution, who met in Philadelphia in 1787, as a mere 
committee of the nation, sent out to report to the people the 
form of a Constitution for their adoption in the summer of 
1788. I deny in any event, the right to resort to this mode 
of interpretation, to contradict the noble and glorious text 
of that document ; but supposing this a correct mode of 
getting darkness into the room to show the light, still it is 
not applied at the right point. Thirteen State conventions 
were held in the year 1788, by the authority of their respec- 
tive legislatures, to adopt or reject what had been framed, 
by a committee-convention of the nation, as a body of 
draughters of the form of the Constitution, w^ho had been 
sent to Philadelphia, during the summer of 1787, to do that 
very work ; not to adopt that Constitution, but to report the 
form of one, to the people of the States. 

In the summer of 1788, the people, in their thirteen State 



SLAVERY IN NliW JERSEY. 335 

Conventions, by the constitutional number of nine, adopted 
this Constitution ; and if this rule of interpretation now 
sought to be adopted, could be made applical)le anywlicre, we 
should have to go to the adopters, and not the framcrs. 
What, and how did the adoj^ters.the people, understand this 
instrument when they adopted it ? Did they understand it 
in any sense different from what it imports on its face ? 
Where are the secret intentions, private understandings, 
those imphed guaranties and curious fanciful compromises 
of those thirteen Conventions of adopters f Have they ever 
come to light except in some long speech of some southern 
slaveholding orator? How came the descendants of those 
slaveholders of 1788 to be made the special depositees of all 
those secret guaranties, compromises, and implied under- 
standings, in behalf of slavery, now spoken of with a confi- 
dence as startling as the information communicated is impor- 
tant, novel, and false. This was not so. These are mere 
after-thoughts of despotism. No man has ever shown one 
word from the adopters, conflicting Avith the text. Shall a 
committee sent out by the nation, aftix to well understood 
language of the common law, and of every day use, some 
secret cabahstic meaning in hostility to the text ; and then 
get the people, through their Conventions, to adopt the 
Constitution for the beautiful principles it expressed on its 
face, and after that was accomplished, to wait till the framers 
and adopters are dead, and then to come out and say, ah, 
the people have adopted this Constitution, for what it pur- 
ported on its face, but we, the sons and grandsons of the 
southern framers, have a cabalistic key left by our irrand- 
fathers in the South, by which, when the word justice 
appears, our grandfathers meant slavery or wjustiee ; when 
we used the word persons we meant slaves sometimes, and 
sometimes /V-ee ^:>e7'50«5 y when we said " no person shall be 
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of 



336 AT.VAN STEWART. 

law," we there understood a slave to he a chattel or a piece 
of property, and not a per807i ; we had a slidmg-scale by 
which we used the word person for slave when the interest 
of the slaveholder is to be promoted, but when the language 
can be applied to him as a person in another part of the 
instrument, and thereby set him free, the intendment is to 
be against liberty, and we did not mean that he should have 
any of the blessings of the Constitution, but only its curses 
and its cruelty. When the word person means hitter^ it is 
the slave's portion ; when the word person means siceet^ he 
has no lot or part in that matter. Although the word person 
never meant slave in any written document before we affixed 
it among ourselves, or our grandfathers did, in this peculiar 
sense, and refused to use the word slave. This was the 
secret opinion of the drafters, who supposed they could thus 
deceive the adopters into adoption. When we enacted that 
Article by which we said " the United States shall guarantee 
a republican form of government to each of the States," we 
knew the old and true meaning of a republican form of govern- 
ment to be one in which the government was made by and 
for the benefit of the governed, and that each person in a 
republican form of government was born free and equal, and 
entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This, 
we knew, would by force of this provision in the Constitution 
of the United States, if faithfully honored, blot out slavery 
from every State constitution, and every State upholding a 
proposition of slavery by State legislation, it being diametri- 
cally opposite to a republican form of government ; therefore, 
it was agreed secretly, as a compromise, by the framers of 
the Constitution, as one of the secret compromises or implied 
guaranties, against liberty, that this should be an unexercised 
article^ or an unused function of the Federal Constitution, as 
a sort of fifth wheel to a coach ; because, if carried out, it 
would cut up slavery, root and branch, in the old States then 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 337 

made, and in the new to he made. Therefore, says this 
secret compromise-keeper, we, at tlie session of Congress in 
1845, in pursuance of our secret compromise of interpreta- 
tion of language, with its use and disuse, and under the sus- 
pension of that article of the Federal Constitution guaran- 
teeing a republican form of government, admitted Florida 
as a State, as w^e had several slave States before, in which we 
permitted this Article of the constitution, guaranteeing a 
republican form of government to each State, to be over- 
ridden and totally disregarded, as though it did not exist ; 
and in the Florida constitution, slavery is held such a sacred 
and central right among her institutions, that it is placed out 
of reach and beyond the control of her own legislature, and 
that colored freemen coming into that State from Maine, 
Massachusetts, or other free States, may be sold as slaves ; 
and the right the Constitution guarantees to each citizen of 
one State in enjoying all the privileges of citizenship in 
another State, says our secret compromise-keeper, means, as 
it was understood by the framers in the cabalistic catalogue, 
that this part of the Constitution should never apply to a 
Massachusetts or Rhode Island citizen, if his great grand- 
mother had a drop of African blood in her veins ; and that 
although the Constitution of the United States had abolished 
attainders in this country, still, so far as free colored citizens 
were concerned in coming from free to slave States, they were 
to be regarded, in defiance of the Constitution of the United 
States, as attainted — yes, the victims of a colored attainder, 
and subject to the awful judgment of perpetual slavery for 
showing their colored heads, with no helmet but the Federal 
Constitution for their protection, in a slave State. 

And if the old State of New Jersey had had the benefit of 
the Federal Constitution before the adoption of your new 
Constitution of 1844, and if Congress had given this State 
the practical benefit of a republican form of goverment, by 

15 



338 ALYAN STEWART. 

abolishing in Congress your State slave laws, as contrary to 
a republican form of government, it would not have been 
necessary for me to have troubled your Honors, the legislar 
tion of Congress being paramount to all State constitutions 
and State legislation on all points within its constitutional 
jurisdiction. And although the constitution of a State may 
be silent on the subject of slavery, still, if slaveholding legis- 
lation dishonor the State statute book, then Congress has 
jurisdiction to abolish such State law, as renders the form of 
that State government hostile to a republican form of govern- 
ment. The form of a State government may be republican 
in its constitution, but legislatioh may spring up in that 
State, by w^hich one half of the people may assume to own 
the other half, in direct hostility to a republican form of 
government, and the United States is then bound, by some 
exercise of sovereign power, to restore to the people of New 
Jersey, a repubhcan form of government, either by legisla- 
tion in Congress or by the exercise of judicial power through 
the Federal or State judiciaries ; and if through the latter, 
then I am in my proper place to contend here, this day, that 
this old law of slavery Avas unconstitutional ever since the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States, as being 
contrary to the fundamental guaranty of the Republic, and 
all State laws conflictmg with said guaranty of a republican 
form of government are null and void, as much as a State 
law violating the liberty of conscience secured by the Con- 
stitution ; and if this ground be a sound position, the slave 
laws have been void from the adoption of the Constitution, 
as being in direct hostility to the solemn guaranty in the 
Constitution in favor of a republican form of government. 
Give me a republican form of government in the Constitu- 
tion and the legislation of a State, and I defy any man to hold 
a human being in that State as a slave, according to the law of 
that country, until the meaning of language is revolutionized. 



SLAVERY IN NEW .TERj^EY. 3.19 

The very idea of a Constitution of tlie United States in an 
enlarged view would be replete with consequences full of 
glorious import to the bondmen of this land. As has been 
said by me before in the course of this argument, a Consti- 
tution springs from our weakness and need of protection, and 
is a covenant of the whole people with each person^ and of 
each person with the whole people, for the protection and 
defence of our natural rights, of life, hberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. Is it possible to conceive that a people meet- 
ing from their natural weakness, and after coming together, 
conclude to make a charter party of piracy ? That, although 
they agree to protect and defend five-sixths of the people in 
their natural rights, yet, as it regards the other sixth, they 
solemnly covenant and guarantee, to give them no protec- 
tion or advantage therefrom, but covenant to strip said one- 
sixth of their natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness ; and reduce them to chattels, mcn-breatbing- 
property, so that they would be infinite losers by forming a 
Constitution. Instead of having their natural rights pro- 
tected, they are stript of the right to themselves, and delivered 
over to masters, who, drunk or sober, reasonable or unreasona- 
ble, sensible or foolish, are to make for them Constitutions 
and laws, in the height of passion, prompted by lust, avarice 
or meanness, from hour to hour, and day to day, until hfe's 
end. The slaveholders contend the Constitution of the 
United States secured them these terrible advantages. If it 
did, and the adopters had so imderstood it, I do not believe 
a single State would have seriously entertained an idea 
of its adoption for a smgle moment, north of the State of 
Delaware. 

To be sure, we have lived under an invisible Constitution 
of slaveholding construction for fifty-five years, which we 
have never seen, but have often bitterly felt— the good 
honest anti-slavery Constitution which should have gone into 



340 ALVAN STEWART. 

Operation on the fourth of March, 1789, as it was honestly 
adopted, and if carried out, in the integrity of its high and 
glorious purpose, would, long ere this, have extirpated 
slavery from this guilty land, and made it the paradise of the 
new world. But the government, from its adoption, has 
been under, as a general proposition, the control of slave- 
holding Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Speakers of the House 
of Representatives, who organize the legislative power with 
five millions of whites at the South, and ten millions of whites 
in the Korth. The South should have had three of the nine 
judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, but they 
have five and the North four ; they have two-thirds of the 
foreign ministers, the principal officers on the sea and on the 
land. The South have furnished the spiracles through which 
the government has breathed, yes, and the eyes with which 
it saw, the ears with which it heard, and the tongues and 
pens by which it spoke and wrote. It is no wonder the ship 
lost the track of its contemplated voyage, and became the 
abused organ of a section of the land whose supposed inte- 
rests prosecuted an implacable war upon human rights, or in 
other words the basis and prosperity of whose peculiar insti- 
tutions Avere quickened into life by tears and blood, and 
found their proper aliment in crushing and prostituting the 
rights of one half of their own population, and holding human 
labor in contempt, by which three millions of their own 
population, being white men, could not labor by the side of 
the slave without disgrace ; and they, the whites, having no 
capital but their labor, sunk down to a point of degradation 
but little above the slaves — no schools, they became the 
lazaroni of this continent ; while some forty thousand oli- 
garchists, owning most of the land and the slaves, and being 
prompted by ambition and money, moved by the common 
spirit of slavery, the true bond of connection and source of 
their political power — these men have snatched this Consti- 



SLAVEKY IN NEW JERSEY. 341 

tution from the nation, and liave given us by tlie force of 
suppression, violation, construction and interpretation, com- 
mingled Avith their fanciful guaranties and com])roniiscs, n 
Constitution as by them administered, bearing a f lint resem- 
blance to the one given us by the fathers of tlie Revolution, 
with their wounds yet unhealed from the battle-fields of 
freedom. The preamble of the Constitution of the United 
States must have been adopted after the whole document had 
been prepared by the framers, as the grand exponent of 
intention ; and as so much is said by slaveholding casuistry, 
I have often thought that the framers of that instrument had 
a melancholy foreboding, that attempts might be made by 
the crafty and designing of an after age, to pervert that 
document, so plain and so full of good sense and virtuous 
principle, to some sinister purpose ; therefore, as an everlast- 
'^^g finger-hoard pointing to the straight road of intent, they 
virtually said — " Here we unlock our hearts, as to object 
and design, and we say. Trust not those who tell you this 
is not the truth. This is our design : "We, the people of the 
United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish 
justice, secure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
defence and promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty, for us and our posterity, do establish and 
ordain this Constitution for the United States of America." 

What purity and nobility of object ! How much have we 
had practically, of this Constitution, by slaveholding con- 
struction ? Let us see how it would read if made for the 
object intended by slaveholders and their apologists, and as 
we practically see it administered. " We, five-sixths of the 
people of the United States, in order to secure a union among 
ourselves, which shall make the other sixth curse the Union, 
and to establish justice for five-sixths by the most cruel 
injustice to the other sixth ; to provide for the common 
defence of five-sixths, by taking away all pubHc and private 



342 ALT AN STEWART. 

defence from the other sixth ; to promote the particular 
welfare of five-sixths by destroying the entire welfare of 
the other sixth ; to secure the blessings of liberty to five- 
sixths and the curses of never-ending slavery to the other 
sixth, do ordain this Constitution for the United States of 
America." 

What would the adopters in the thirteen States have said 
to such a draft of a Constitution ? Most of the thirteen 
States, on organizing the conventions of 1788, for rejection 
or adoption, would have resolved to have let the common 
hangman hang this Constitution on the gallows, with cari- 
catures of the leaders in the convention of 1787, and closed 
the scene by burning it up, and have adjourned sine die. 
Another convention of the United States would have been 
called by an indignant people, and the first article would 
have abolished slavery, by name, in the United States, as an 
everlasting disturbing cause, no longer to be trusted to dis- 
grace our soil. 

Many seem to think, that we derive our natural, as well as 
citizen rights, from a Constitution. That cannot be so. Our 
natural rights are derived from our Maker, and the Constitu- 
tion is like a fence around them to protect them from the 
invasion of others. Men derive title by letters-patent from 
the supreme power of the State, to their land, and the fence is 
placed around it to protect it from the wandering herd. Con- 
stitutions may also be said to be of American origin, and it is 
not possible we were so corru2:)t in the morning of the science. 
To be sure England talks of our Constitution ; she speaks of 
the Magna Charta, obtained by fierce and ignorant barons, 
in the year 1215, with sword in hand, from feeble John ; 
also the introduction of the Protestant religion, by Henry 
VIIL, and the Revolution of 1688, and some other important 
epochs hke the Reform Bill, which added to the current 
stream of imperial legislation, all considered, being " moles 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 343 

indigesta^'^^ make the sum and substance of wliat an Eni^'lisli. 
man means by the Constitution of his country. France made 
several Constitutions during tlic political paroxysms and 
revolutions of that curious people, during the latter end of 
the eighteenth and. the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, 
but at last this gallant people revolved in a circle of element 
ary expedients, from 1789 to the war of the barricades in 
1830, making organic experiments, to collect the true sense 
of the nation respecting the safest place or hands in which to 
lodge power, from which the greatest amount of protection 
might be expected with the least burden to the people. 
Different forms of primal law were submitted to the people 
for adoption or rejection. 

But look at Russian, Prussian, German, and Italian States ; 
here each person is looking to im^Dcrial, royal, or ducal pre- 
rogatives, for that security of life, liberty, and property, which 
should never have been absorbed by the Crown, but should 
always have constituted a fundamental/ay er of human rights, 
coming from, and adopted by the people, as their wall of 
defence. 

Our colonies were in the habit of recei\'ing gifts of a poli- 
tical character, carefully sent over the Atlantic after them, 
in grants, patents, bills of rights, and charters ; the very rights 
which they could not have left behmd them, and been me?i. 
These constitutions, anywhere and everywhere, as a general 
rule, are made to defend human rights and not to crush them. 
The very idea of a constitution is like a life-preserver, made 
to save men in their danger in the water, and is not to be 
loaded with lead to sink them. There are innumerable modes 
by which human rights have been crushed, without calling in 
the very thing which should protect them, with which to 
accomplish so diabolical a purpose. To suppose ships made 
on purpose to preserve live-sixths, and expressly to dro^^^^ 
the other sixth who sailed in them ; the bridge to precipitate 



344 ALTAN STEWART. 

its sixth passenger over it into the river ; is not more absnrd 
in supposition, than to suppose a United States Constitution 
to be an instrument of ruin and destruction to every sixth 
man who sought its protection. Instead of an asylum he finds 
it to be a dungeon with fetters ; that he is to be bereaved, 
and his posterity in all coming generations, of all capacity to 
have natural rights ; the forlorn victims of avarice, lust, 
cruelty, and contempt ; himself^ property owned, and in the 
most abject form, shorn of the power to assert the strength 
heaven gave him to protect his most valuable rights. Rights! 
Amazing ! He has no rights but the right to be abused, to be 
whipped, to starve, to suifer, and to die ! ! This idea of a 
constitution being used as a death-warrant to execute human 
rights, is a horrid solecism ! incomprehensible, yea, a sublime 
absurdity ; the greatest insult ever offered to the human un- 
derstanding ; and certain men pretend such is the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. 

If the Constitution was an animated being, with reason 
and a voice, and if you were to ask her to speak and say, was 
she made to uphold slavery, and destroy human rights, she 
would answer, " As to slavery I know not what you mean by 
the w^ord, I never used it in my life ; I was born and brought 
into this world for the single purj^ose of protecting the rights 
of persons, defending men from the violations of their human 
rights, from invasion from abroad, or forceful w^'ong on 
the soil. I know no one except as a person possessing the 
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and for 
their protection I put forth my power. When the free men 
and women of this country are counted as a basis of repre. 
sentation m Congress and for Presidential electors (Indians not 
taxed excepted), and three-fifths of all other persons are to be 
counted, and though States or mdividuals call those three- 
fifths, slaves, serfs, or cojinecting links hetioeen 7nen and mon- 
keys^ and even treat them as such, I only know them as I do 



SLAVERY IN NEW JEliSKV. 345 

the rest of mankind — as persons ; my eyes can only foo nion 
as persons, my ears can only hoar the cry of men as persons, 
possessed of natural rights. I cannot be used to destroy the 
liberties of any innocent man. It is not within tiie rani^^e ot 
my power, unless I am perverted to purposes contrary to my 
instincts." " Who dare affirm," says she, " that I guarantee 
slavery and make compromises for its support ? Oh !" says 
she, " it is all false, it is directly tliQ reverse ; I guarantee to 
each State a Republican form of government, which confers 
the equal right of life, liberty, and property to each innocent 
human being in each of the twenty-seven States ; that is my 
right, my power, my nature, prerogative, scope, end, and 
object of my existence ; and slavery exists in this country to 
my unutterable confusion, by my violation direct, and by 
reason of the people of this land having refused to allow me 
to prostrate slavery through the judiciary or Congress, under 
my guaranty of a republican form of government to the 
States. Persons bound to service or labor by laws of one 
State, I say, shall not be withheld, but shall be delivered up 
on claim of him to whom such service or labor is due. Here 
I deal with persons again. If the wife, the son, the daughter, 
the apprentice, the prisoner from his bail, escape mto other 
States, I order all of these persons to be delivered to the 
husband, or the father, or the master, or their bail, to whom 
such labor and service is due, and for this purpose I am a 
perpetual treaty between the States, to accomplish these just 
objects, and save the effusion of blood. If," says the Consti- 
tution, " a slave is not a person within the protection which 
I afford to all persons where I say ' no person shall be de- 
prived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of 
law,' then he is a being I have no right to touch and deliver 
up, for I can only deliver up persons bound to, or who owe 
service or labor as persons and not as slaves ; and if these 
persons are slaves, then I am under the most solemn promise 

15* 



B4S ALVAN 8TEWAKT. 

and obligation not to explain away, but to see that slave- 
persons, if you please, are not deprived of life or liberty, 
without due process of law, which must have been some dis- 
tinct adjudication that the being was a slave, by a court, 
acting on the principles of the common law. No such court 
has been organized in this land, no such judgments have been 
rendered. If he is within the protection of the magna charta 
part of my character, then I will not deliver the man to his 
master, as you are pleased to call him, until a judgment of 
some kind, showing that the man owes service to another, and 
has been deprived of his liberty by due process of law. Some 
record of that kind must be shown, or I cannot deliver him 
up." 

Said Mr. S., I demand that these persons be delivered up 
to enjoy their liberty, on the ground of the declaration in the 
Constitution of the United States, declaring that " no person 
shall be deprived of hfe, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law. There is not a slave or servant, so held, of 
the four thousand of both sorts in New Jersey, but who is 
entitled to his hberty by the Constitution of the United 
States. 

It is a curious and ridiculous idea of some, that our fathers 
had secret thoughts of crime against laan, which they had 
not the courage to express, under the name of intentions, 
when they drafted the Constitution of the United States ; 
and that we, out of respect to the unrecorded, unwritten, 
villainous intentions, and wicked wishes of our venerable 
ancestors, should take those wicked thoughts and unre- 
corded intentions of crime against the rights of man, as our 
Constitution, under the idea of intention, rather than the 
beautiful text itself, so full of Hfe, liberty, and justice. The 
Constitution of the United States, on its own face, is safe, 
and more to be relied on to explain its own meaning with 
justice to the framers, adopters, and us, their posterity, than 



SLAVERY IN NEW JKKSEY. 347 

all we could learn from eacli drafter and each adopter, could 
we summon them before a court of justice to explain it as 
they understood it, on the 4th of March, 1789, the day it 
went into operation. To be sure, if the adopters ever 
thought of slavery, they did not think to name it, and nnist 
have supjDosed it near its end, and they did not wish to dis- 
grace the nation by the admission that so foul and base a 
thing ever existed. It is truly lamentable to think the 
human mind is yet in such a low state of civilization, that 
from this point to enter goose-hood^ would be elevation, and 
that men should delight to lay hold of such absurd views, as 
the one exposed, to justify themselves in the perversion of 
that glorious instrument, to some low and grovelling purpose, 
pecuniary or political. 

Mr. S. said that he felt m.ortificd to think it should be 
necessary for him, in the nineteenth century, to stand in Re- 
publican America, the live-long day, before one of the highest 
courts in intellect, learning, and station, to prove a human 
being a man, and not a thing. The proposition that the 
colored people of this State held in bondage, are men, born 
free and independent, by the law of nature, is one above all 
demonstration, outstrips all logical deductions, and addresses 
itself to our every perception, for its truth, which can gain 
nothing from analogy, and borrow nothing from illustration ; 
comparison cannot aid in its development, and similes cannot 
make it more clear to the human mind. Antiquity and to- 
day utter the same response. It is the same yesterday, to- 
day, and forever. Every degree of latitude and longitude 
renders the same verdict, whether at Timbuctoo or at Tren- 
ton ; Avhether in mind or in body, for time or eternity, they 
are men and women, creatures of hope, gazmg on the same 
bright, strong, beautiful, and ancient heavens, on which 
Adam, and Solomon, and Daniel, and Paul, Copernicus, and 
Columbus, turned their admiring eyes ; the frames of colored 



348 ALVAN STEWART. 

men, their human countenance divine, containing the same 
unerased lineaments, vindicating, in celestial heraldry, the 
grandeur of their descent, the greatness of their origin — 
showing that God is their father, that all men are brethren of 
one blood ; that the sweets of life, the joy of liberty, the hope 
and pursuit of happiness, are the gifts of the Great Father, 
. to all, and each of his children, with a power and privilege 
forever to cUmb the ascending heights of eternity, through 
the merits of His Son, increasing in happiness and knowledge, 
through the endless day of Heaven. 

The greatest announcement affecting the interests of man 
ever made since the advent of the Redeemer, was the 
synopsis of the rights of man, made by the immortal signers 
of the Declaration of Independence, on the 4th day of 
July, 1776. 

The announcement was antagonistic to the opinions of all 
former ages, and the then existing powers of this world. 
Russell, Sidney, Milton, Cromwell, and Locke, were per- 
mitted to ascend the mount of Discovery, and behold, as by 
prophetic sight, in the land of the setting sun, beyond the 
vast Atlantic, a people asserting what these philosophers be- 
lieved ; that all men were created free and equal, and possessed 
of certain inahenable rights, amongst which were Ufe, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. What they hoped for man, 
we have seen and heard. When this subhme declaration 
was made on the 4th of July, 1776, it was high treason, and 
political atheism, in every other government on earth. 

To all other governments with birth-born kings, birth-born 
legislators, birth-born judges, this declaration of the Ameri- 
can Revolutionists was a thousand times more formidable 
than war or revolution itself This was a great fundamental 
proposition, placing all men on a level, and as equals, on the 
start of the journey of existence; stating the value, the 
riches of their elemental capital, which no insolvency could 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 349 

divest, no bankruptcy carry away. Slavery, or tlic inherit- 
able dominion of man over man, with its complicatefl train 
of truckling dependencies, artificial distinctions, the iron- 
railing of caste, were in one day, by the great proposition of 
the 4th of July, struck down as false in pri!ici])le. This was 
the sentiment of a New World, and the signers of tlie 
great human being postulatum, spoke for themselves, and 
the unborn nations of this broad continent, respecting this 
great Americanism of the new hemisphere. The glorious 
sound went careering through the world, that all men are 
created free and equal. The Massachusetts slave heard its 
music, and joined in the chorus, and his freedom was con- 
fessed. The slaves of New York and Pennsylvania listened 
to the- joyful acclaim; the man-chattel of New Hampshire 
caught the still small voice, and joined in thanks to heaven, 
that all were free. Congress caught the sound, and said, the 
African slave trade should cease on our part forever, and that 
no slave should tread the States of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana^ 
Michigan, and the territories of Wisconsin and Iowa. The 
angel of deliverance flew with the mighty scroll in her right 
hand over valley and mountain to the vast lands of Mexico, 
and proclaimed from the summit of her smoking volcanoes, 
that all men were born free and equal ; and in one day, 
50,000 black slaves, and two millions of enslaved Indians, in 
their repartimientos^ in the mountains, in the mines, in the 
workshops, and on the roads, in their chains, heard the glo- 
rious decree, and they all in chorus joined, and sung, " that 
aU men are created free and equal," and in that instant they 
stood up free. The angel cried again in Guatemala and 
Peru, from the depth of the blue heavens, " that all men 
were created free." The black and red slave heard his 
voice, from the mountain and the mine, the hiU and the hol- 
low, that all men were created free and equal, and their fet- 
ters fell from their delivered hands as they hfled them to 



350 ALVAN STEWART. 

heaven ; and then they sung, *' all men are created free and 
equal," for they were free. 

Along upon the mighty Andes the angel flew, and from 
Chimborazo's icy top, she cried again so loud and long that 
the tens of thousands of poor bondsmen of Chili heard, some 
in those unvisited regions, subterranean, damp, dreary, 
digging gold ore and veins of silver far under the floor of 
the roaring Pacific, who never saw light ; while others were 
delving in the depths and bowels of the Andes, to satisfy the 
accursed thirst for gold ; others in smelting-houses loaded 
with chains ; others driving, as serfs, their master's flocks of 
goats and sheep on the mountain's side, and the loaded mule 
along ; others with loads upon their heads, in the rounds of 
common life, who wore out their being for thankless masters; 
others to galleys chained; others bound to posts, whose 
backs were being scourged ; others in a deferential form 
were listening to the raging words of graceless masters. All 
heard the long, the loud trumpet sound, " that all men were 
created free and equal." All around the whips and fetters 
fell, and in one joyful hour, in time, up went the glorious 
chorus of response from men who were slaves no more, who 
said and sung " all men are created free and equalP The 
joyful proclamation, by the angel made, and the sublime 
chorus, and Humanity's reply, rolled over the great mountain, 
and down its eastern slant, and the slaves of Guayaquil, 
Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia, learnt to sing the holy 
notes, " that all men are created free and equal ;" and in one 
day deliverance came to all these sons of sorrow and of toil. 
The angel then to the West Indies flew, and the men of Hayti 
said, throughout that island, all men are free, and one million 
stood up enfi-anchised ; the anthem of deliverance was sung 
in each British Isle on the 1st of August, 1838, and 800,000 
slaves in one moment became 800,000 British freemen. The 
angel flew to the Cape of Good Hope, and sung her celestial 



SLAVERY IN NEW JEllSKY. 351 

song, and in one day 100,000 bondmen cried from the Capo 
inland 600 miles east and west, from sea to sea, " wc all are 
free." The angel balanced on her pmions, ilew and cried in 
the ears of the Bey of Tmiis, and in the Egyptian Ali rasha\s, 
"that all men are created free and equal." These sous of 
Mahomet heard, and the Ileaveu-made-decree obeyed, and 
in those lands of darkness and of death, in one day each slave 
cried out, "I am free! I am free!" On the 1st of April, 
1844, the angel of peace and good will toward men, blew a 
louder and longer blast than she ever yet had done ; it was 
heard over the hundred millions of East Indies, saying, " all 
men were created free and equal." In a moment the here- 
ditary serf, the caste-marked million, and slaves by descent, 
for ages, in all 12,000,000 told, started into life and joy, 
amidst rattling chains and broken fetters falling from them, 
their eyes streaming with tears, grateful to Heaven as they 
flowed, and they all joined in the glorious song Avhich they 
now sung, " that all men are created free," and " that they 
were slaves no more !" 

We live in an abolition age, when the dungeons which 
have incarcerated suflering humanity are being broken in 
and unlocked, m every corner of our benighted- world, and 
the captive bid come forth ; and may I entreat this Honor- 
able Court to share in the unfading glory of opening this 
castle of slavery. New Jersey, with the key of the new Con- 
stitution, and the other keys I have the honor so submit to 
this Court, by which to let oppressed men go free. 

Here Mr. S. closed his opening argument, having spoken 
until six o'clock, p. m. 

The Court adjoorned until Thursday morning at ten o'clcKk. a. m. 
The Court met at ten o^cIock, a. m., on the 22d of May, and Chief 
Justice llornblower made a very able, eloquent, and affecting address, 
to two fine looking young men, who were sentenced to be executed 
in August next for the murder of Parke and Rasner. 



352 ALVAN STEWART. 

At eleven o'clock, a.m., Mr. Zabriskie opened his argument for the 
defence of the claimants of these persons, and spoke till half after one, 
with a good deal of talent and power. The Court adjourned until 
three o'clock, p.m. Mr. Zabriskie resumed, and concluded at half 
after three, p.m. 

Mr. Bradley, as counsel for the claimants, spoke with much energy 
and ingenuity until live o'clock, p. m., when he closed. 

Mr. Stewart replied from five o'clock, p.m., to six. The Court 
adjourned until seven, p.m., and Mr. Stewart spoke from seven, p.m., 
until after ten, and closed. 

It is regretted that the arguments of Messrs. Zabriskie and Brad- 
ley could not have been given at length, but many of tlie points 
which they made will appear in Mr. Stewart's reply. It is not 
expected we should report all Mr. Stewart said, fir.^t and last, in 
eleven liours of delivery. 

ARGUMENT IN REPLY. 

Mr. Stewart said, in reply, that he must express his grati- 
tude to the learned counsel, for the kind compliments paid to 
his intellect, by one who had given us so strong evidence, 
that he himself enjoyed the singular fortune of a fine mind, 
embellished with the advantages of a polished education, and 
what he could not command from research he might still 
enjoy by the power of reflection. 

Mr. S. said the learned counsel had alluded to the fact 
that the first person they had seen alive, who was an Aboli- 
tionist, in the county of Bergen, was the person who served 
these writs of habeas corpus — Mr. Palmer— and the coun- 
sel gravely informs us that the people did not tar ?cci^ feather 
him. I suppose this statement is made as a distinguished 
compliment to his neighbors in that county, and as the 
highest proof they have ever given of their civilization ; and 
it is to be hoped they may never, in an evil hour, fall beloAV 
this high-water mark of their advancing elevation. 

Mr. Zabriskie has told us, to frighten and almost alarm us 
out of this efibrt in behalf of crushed men, and to make us 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 353 

leave these slaves in the great man-trap, that if your lionoi-s 
shall let those slaves go free under your new ConstiUilion, 
the courts wiU be compelled to hear arguments by wives and 
children, to be set free from the dominion of their liusbands 
and parents. The bare statement of so strange a proposition 
relieves me from a reply to it. 

The gentleman has endeavored to alarm the sensibilities of 
the court, by a parade of several distinct orders of modern 
philosophers, known imder the name of Fouriers, Anti- 
Renters, Socialists, Owenites, Fanny Wrighters, Non-Rcsis- 
tants, and No-Human-Government-men, Dissolvers of the 
Union, Nullifiers, and Infidels. And he would wish to 
fasten the opinion upon the court, that there is some sort of 
relation between these philosophers' views and this dry law 
question, which is, whether slavery in the State of JSTew 
Jersey is a legal and lawful institution or not. I confess I 
cannot discover any more relation between the philosophical 
dogmas of these different philosophers and the question before 
your Honors, than there is propriety in the following question : 
" If it is two hundred miles from tliis place to Boston, what 
is the amount of the first quarter's salary of the Lord Mayor of 
London ?" I think when the pertinency of one of these pro- 
positions is made manifest, the other will then appear. 

But, as there have been several attempts to lock and hook 
together, during the gentleman's reply, things the most 
dissimilar and uncongenial, I will take, if the court permit, the 
present opportunity, to define the Hberty party Abolitioni^^ts' 
creed, a body of men who, at the late election, appeared to 
number about 62,500 voting men, of which body the speaker 
was an humble member. The liberty party Abolitionists, in 
the United States, had been a political party, with its candi- 
dates, ever since April, 1840; and was formed from necessity, 
to overthrow slavery, after having tried both of the old 
parties in vain, each of the old imrties having a slave end to 



354 ALVAN STEWART. 

it, so that it was impossible to get either to undertake this 
work. The hhcrty party hold the Constitution of the United 
States to be, when properly interpreted, an anti-slavery docu- 
ment, replete with tendencies in favor of freedom ; but that 
the slaveholding portion of this country have seized upon the 
reins of government, and perverted the Constitution's high 
intent, to the base purposes of sustaining, and increasing the 
power of slaveholders in every possible way, and have violated 
the Constitution by employing it to sanction slavery in many 
ways, and in the overthrow of the right of petition. The lib- 
erty party Abolitionists mean to employ the Constitution, 
and in pursuance of its authority, and not contrary thereto, 
to overthrow slavery in every way, and by all lawful means. 
We mean, as a body, and it is a part of our creed, to cling 
to the Union or Confederacy under all circumstances, and 
never give it up ; slavery in, or slavery out, Texas in or Texas 
out : we hold on to the Union and every acre of its soil^ 
whether it be the sands of Georgia or the mountains of Ver- 
mont, for the exaltation, puritication, and enfranchisement of 
this land from slavery, root and branch. It is a cardinal 
principle from the beginning, never to vote for a slaveholder, 
or an apologist of slavery, but hold it our duty to vote at 
every election for men for town, county. State, and national 
officers, w^ho will employ all lawful power to banish slavery 
from the nation, for the sake of thi*ee millions of slaves com- 
pelled to work without wages, as well as three millions of 
ignorant, poor, and unschooled Avhites in the South, the 
lazaroni of this continent, who are ruined by the most abject 
poverty, it being disgraceful for them to labor for wages by 
the side of the slave. To save six millions of human beings 
from ruin or desolation, or one-third of our countrymen, is 
the exact object of the Uberty party Abohtionists, let it take 
ever so long to accompUsh it. AVe have no motive for ad- 
vancing the one, or retarding the other of the great parties, 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 355 

as we mean, in the end, to overthrow them both, as soon as 
we can get our countrymen to adopt our belief; we are law- 
abiding and law-sustaining men, and there is no more con- 
nection between the liberty party Abolitionists, and the list 
of philosophers just enumerated, than there is between the 
Chinese wall and the Erie canal. We believe in short, a man 
has a better right to his own wife and children, than any 
other man, and we suppose the curse of slavery has, as a mass, 
nearly ruined the men of the South, as well as the land of the 
slave States, and we wish to improve and save our country 
and our people, by our party organization. And my apology 
to the court for this statement, defining our position, is the 
attempt to injure and dishonor as high-minded and pure a 
body of men as breathe, by making them keep company with 
those philosophers, however respectable they may be ; yet 
we have not chosen their society, or opinions, in the prose- 
cution of our enterprise. 

The counsel of defendant, has attacked New York for call- 
ing a State convention. I can see nothing ultra or radical, 
once in a quarter of a century, in a State's reviewing the 
ground it has passed over, and thus lay hold of the improve- 
ments time suggests, or brings to light, for perfecting her 
great social edifice. The old way to amend the fabric of 
government in Europe, was on the battle-field, amidst the 
clangor of arms and roar of artilery, with bullets for yeas^ 
and cannon balls iovnays. I confess I much prefer the mode 
adopted by the State of New York. 

The learned counsel, to get rid of the force of the first 
article of the new Constitution of this State, says it is a mere 
abstraction, a rhetorical flourish, and is not a part of the Con- 
stitution, in reality, not binding us to do anything. I should 
like to know where I am to begin to read the new Constitu- 
tion, and how much of it is to be rejected as surplusage. 

The other counsel, Mr. Bradley, says this section of the 



356 ALVAN STEWART. 

Constitution is a mere braggadocio, a mere telling England 
that all men are free and independent by nature, and it is so 
said, to let England know that our people know that we are 
as good as her Lords and Commons, Kings and Queens, and 
that it grew out of our revolutionary jealousy, of our own 
importance, when we first inserted it in the Declaration of 
Independence. This is queer indeed ! New Jersey, in her 
old Constitution, made two days before the Declaration of 
Independence, was perfectly silent then ; when the reason 
for bragging might have operated, she is very meek theti ; 
not one word is said about human rights; but 68 years 
afterward, in September, 1844, when all danger is forever 
past, according to the gentleman, New Jersey sticks up 
her bristles, and says, " I would have you know, old England, 
yes, old John Bull, and you Miss Victoria Guelph, and Mr. 
Albert Coburg, that we are as good by nature, and as inde- 
pendent as any of you, yes, that ice he?' But the sober- 
minded, brave, and considerate Jerseyman never had such 
a thought pass through his mind, at the time he voted for its 
adoption. He had too much regard for his own dignity, and 
too much respect for England, to employ himself in such a 
miserable small game of swelling and surf -making, to elevate 
the character of his country. The noble-minded Jerseyman 
is wilUng that other countries should amuse themselves with 
the baubles of kings, queens, and lords, as national dolls and 
playthings, without considering himself undervalued in the 
least by not being used for the same puerile and harmless 
purpose by his own countrymen ; and the last place in the 
world he would seek to curl the lip of scorn, would be in his 
own great fundamental and organic law, asserting his own 
freedom, dignity, and independence. 

Mr. Bradley contends that Moses' law sanctioned slavery, 
and the buying the heathen around about for money. Yes, 
there was a kind of servitude which looks like buying the 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 857 

heathen hy those ancient Jews for money. But the Jewish 
government was a theocracy, and every law, decree, or order 
of government, began with "Thus saith the Lord," as a 
standing formula ; whether the document, law, or proclama- 
tion, came from the elders, a king, a general, or a high-priest, 
from a good man, or bad one, whoever had occasion to 
employ the character of the government, as that was a 
theocracy, and these rulers always used " Thus saith the 
Lord," as a universal preface to the law. All of Moses' laws 
were not from God ; but Moses' system was a code of parti- 
culars, some from God and others from man. The Saviour 
settles this question in the case of that law of Moses, by 
which a man might live with his wife, a month after mar- 
riage, and if he did not like her, then give her a bill of 
divorcement, and send her away, hoAvever virtuous and 
worthy. The Saviour says, " Moses suffered it from the hard- 
ness of your hearts, it was not so in the beginning," etc. 
Now, this month divorce ; the case of a Jew being per- 
mitted to take a cow, or an ox, which had suddenly died, to 
the gates of the city, and there sell it to the heathen and 
strangers to eat (forbidding the Jews to eat it), also the case 
of taking interest of the heathen, and none of a Jew, are 
instances. Polygamy is a fourth case, and the fifth is a man's 
makmg his captive into a wife, living with her as long as he 
pleased, and then setting her adrift, as in the 21st chapter of 
Deuteronomy ; all of these cases have thus " Saith the Lord," 
as much as good laws. These laws Moses suffered this 
ignorant people to adopt as a matter of expediency, but they 
were not the laws of God, but are properly recorded, as our 
laws formerly in New York were, in I'avor of lotteries, and 
regulating Long Island horse-races. But the terrible injus- 
tice of these laws, proves that man was their author, and not 
God ; but they are recorded under the general appellation of 



358 ALVAN STEWART. 

"Thus saith the Lord," because the government was a 
Theocracy. This view, Mr. S. believed necessary, to vindi- 
cate the i:)urity and glory of God, There was a law of 
heavenly origin which said, "whoso stealeth a man shall 
surely die or be put to death," which form he did not recol- 
lect, and is found in these same chapters. He did not see how 
that law of God could be reconciled with American slavery ; 
for every man and woman, or his or her ancestor, had been 
stolen in this country. Again, if slavery is a Bible and 
heavenly institution, we should not be opposed to it i?i the 
abstract^ as the defendant's counsel are, but everything 
should be done to foster and encourage it, and their Honors 
should resign their seats rather than decide in Mr. S.'s favor, 
however plain the new Constitution or other thing might be 
for the slave ; for if the Bible countenances slavery, it is 
abstractly right, and the plaintiff's counsel commit a great 
sin in opposing slavery in the abstract, which they intend to 
atone for by going with all their might for it practically, and 
thus purge themselves for opposing, what the Bible sustains, 
in the abstract and concrete. If it is a Bible institution, 
which we have been abolishing in New England, New York, 
and Pennsylvania, let us repent in dust and ashes, and run 
down all the colored, the weak, the young, the Irish, the 
English, and the strangers on their first arrival ; and catch 
our few suffering Indians, who are still straggling as wan- 
derers among their fathers' graves, and make them all into 
slaves, and their posterity in the free States ; and thus secure 
the blesshigs of Heaven, that are poured out so bountifully 
on Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas. 

Mr. S. said that of all remarkable arguments for ingenuity, 
he had heard one urged by both of his learned and ingenious 
adversaries, and, in fact, the main one, on which they sought 
to continue the institution of slavery, in this State, which 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 350 

surprised, yes, astonished him, by its subtlety and cruelty. 
In the 1st section of the 10th Article of the iicw Constitution 
of ISTeAY Jersey, among other things, it says : 

" The common law and statute laws now in force, and not repvg- 
nant to this Constitution, shall remain in force until they expire by 
their own limitation, or be altered or repealed by the legislature ; 
and all writs, actions, causes of action, prosecutions, contracts, 
claims, and rights of individuals, and of bodies corporate, and of the 
State, and all charters of incorporation, shall continue, and all in- 
dictments which shall have been found, or may hereafter be found 
for any crime or offence committed before the adoption of this 
Constitution, may bo proceeded upon, as though no change had taken 
place." 

The. point the defendant's counsel would raise, is this ; ad- 
mitting that the new Constitution has abolished the old slave 
laws, root and branch, as being " repugnant" to the new Con- 
stitution ; still under the name of " claims and rights of indi- 
viduals" which " should continue," the rights of master and 
slave are both preserved in the 1st section of the 10th Arti- 
cle of the new Constitution under the head of " rights pre- 
served^''^ as defendant's counsel contend. The counsel fur- 
ther contend for defendant, that it is good law without such 
saving clause in the Constitution ; and that all rights are pre- 
served, notwithstanding a constitution, hostile to them on its 
face, has abolished the laws which created the rights, in so 
many words, totidem verbis. I deny these propositions, in 
toto^ as applied to a case of slavery. Reserved rights 1 They 
would be reserved lorongs ! and upon that principle a State 
could not abolish slavery; as for instance, suppose South 
Carolina makes a new Constitution, and abolishes slavery, 
and with, or without a reservation of the rights of the citi- 
zens ; according to the argument we hear, the rights of the 
master are all taken up and preserved in the new Constitu- 
tion, to the ser^dces of the slaves ; the rights of sale of labor, 



360 ALVAN STEWART. 

or sale of slaves, or their offspring, are the same as before. 
They alter this Constitution again, and re-assert, ten years 
afterward, that slavery shall never exist in South Carolina ; 
but the planter smiles at the imbecility of the Convention, and 
says, "although they have for the second time abolished 
slavery by the Constitution, and all laws which maintain it, 
yet according to the arguments of the defendant's counsel, 
in New Jersey, my rights are all preserved to the slaves, and 
that is all I ask ;" and furthermore, says he, " it is curious to 
see how the body of this glorious institution of slavery sur- 
vives its own decapitation. They cannot," says he, " abolish 
slavery, even in a constitution made on purpose, but the Bi- 
vine rights of slavery loill survive, and ride careering over 
all human attempts at their annihilation ; and what," says the 
South Carohna planter, " is the pecuUar beauty of this pro- 
position, is, that by the universal admission of all jurists, 
slavery can only exist -by positive law, for its support ; but I 
have now discovered how it may exist not only without posi- 
tive laAV for its support, but in deadly opposition to the most 
stringent organic Constitutional Law, for its entire abolition 
and express destruction." Once in a nation, and adopted by 
law, no form of law can banish it, as it lives under the name 
of a "right preserved;" yes, it lives and flourishes with an 
endless life. It is the real " live-for-ever P Yes, if this argu- 
ment is sound, the most monstrous wrong in the universe, for 
whose destruction a new Constitution was expressly made, 
flourishes and prevails ; yes, lo ! the melancholy spectacle is 
presented to the astonished world, that although the laws sus- 
taining slavery are aU abohshed, yet slavery has a more solemn 
and formidable protection, as a reserved right, than it ever 
had before, and that too in the bosom of its own executioner. 
The counsel, I have no doubt, hopes the shrewdness of this 
argument will be its apology for want of solidity. The mas- 
ter never had a single just right to the slave, and the Consti- 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 361 

tution no more preserves any for him, lliiin it does the turn- 
pike for highwaymen^ the treasure in my house for a thief, 
or the thoughtless young heir for a prey to blacklegs and 
sharpers. 

After this view of this question has been taken, I shall con- 
sider the concession virtually made, that slavery is repugnant 
to the new Constitution ; that the Massachusetts decision ends 
this cause, if good authority. 

But slavery has been spoken of by the defendant's counsel 
with great respect. I regard it as the curse of the nation. 
Virginia, at the time of the first census, in 1790, had more 
than double the inhabitants of the State of New York : now 
it is sadly reversed, New York has about double that of Vir- 
ginia. Virginia, with nearly double the territory of New 
York, and more good land than New York, situated in the 
most benignant climate to be found under the bright heavens, 
penetrated with large bays, and beautiful, noble, and naviga- 
ble rivers, stretching to the metropolis of our land, washed 
by the Ohio ; no land whose mountains are more ready to 
burst with their mineral wealth than hers ; whose lead, iron, 
coal, and copper, lie hoarded in those beautiful mountains, in 
value beyond the computations of numbers, or the dreams of 
avarice. But that wealth shall never be explored, raised, or 
enjoyed by the palsied arm of slavery. No, it is reserved for 
the vigor of the freeman's strength ; not dishonored by the 
blight of unpaid labor : those treasures will only come at the 
call of honored and free labor. 

Look at hundreds of thousands of acres of fair and valuable 
land in Western Virginia, which would make noble farms, 
when free labor shall be honored, now sold at six cents, ten 
cents, and twenty-five cents an acre. Look at hundreds of 
old farms within forty and fifty miles of Washington, to be 
sold from |4 to $10 per acre, with their dilapidated buildings, 
covered with mortgages and trust deeds ; the same land, 

16 



362 ALVAN STEWAET. 

slavery abolished, and freemen to cultivate, would be worth 
from |30 to $80 per acre. Look at whole regions and por- 
tions of counties abandoned, as commons, in old Eastern 
Virginia, where you may ride for hours, without meeting an 
inhabitant in the lower counties of this State, land yet beau- 
tiful, if its powers of fecundity were truly developed by free- 
men, once the seats of joyful hospitality of the last century, 
now as silent as the ruins of Palmyra and Babylon. The 
young growth of timber coming up, the wild animals resum- 
ing their ancient dominion, the traveller from the old world, 
as he measured his lonely steps over these forsaken abodes of 
men, would inquire what desolating wars have consumed the 
sons and daughters of this fair land ? in what chronicles shall 
it be found, or what more than Egyptian plague has been 
and bereaved these uncultivated lands of their proprietors, and 
has left the fox to come in at the window, and the owl to 
hoot at noon, and appointed the stork, the raven, the cormo- 
rant and bittern, to perforin the hospitalities of these dilapi- 
dated homes of departed men f Alas ! the curse of the slave's 
foot-print has been Aere, unrewarded toil has been here^ in- 
alienable rights have been cloven down here^ man has ranked 
with the ox, in the market, here ; marriage rights were trod- 
den under foot here ; the father who begot, and the mother 
who bore the son and the daughter, had no rights in their 
children here ; men had no right to cultivate their immortal 
minds here ; justice and mercy had no abode here ; free 
labor was dishonored here ; the lash, the fetter and the chain 
ruled here ;' and at last, hunger expelled the oppressor from 
his home here. 

The splendid and princely plantation of George Washing- 
ton, the Father of his country, presents, in forty-five years, 
one -of the most melancholy and remarkable instances of that 
ceaseless vigilance of Providence, vfhich pursues mjustice 
with unerring certainty, from year to/ ^ear, and at last over- 



SLAVERY IN NEW .TEUSEY. 3r)3 

takes and awards the punishment affixed to fun.lanicntal 
violations of the great rights, which the Father of all has in 
the welfare of his abnsed children. 

Thonsands of acres, and money in vast amount, united in 
"the official station of President; this plantation lying Avithin 
• some ten or twelve miles from the three beautiful cities of 
Georgetown, Washington and Alexandria, partly surrounded 
by the majestic Potomac River, bearing on its commercial 
bosom ships from the ends of the world, freighted with every 
human want ; this plantation was ready to ship at its own 
door, every redundancy it bore, at remunerating prices. The 
ambition of General Washington during the last years of his 
retirement, was, to make this fivored place, with his hundred 
slaves, his abounding wealth, the great pattern jilantation of 
^'~this continent. Having done much to see his high puq^ose 
accomplished, in December, 1799, he died, having emanci- 
pated his slaves by his will. Judge Bushrod Washington, 
his nejDhew, with a large family of slaves, with a salary of 
$4,500 from the United States as judge for hfe, succeeded his 
illustrious uncle; and in 1819 or thereabouts, made a large 
sale of some thirty to fifty slaves, being near one-half The 
nation was incensed at the act ; his public apology was, that 
he was compelled to sell part to support the rest, and thus 
the process of anthropophagi^ or man eating man, indirectly 
commenced; the cultivation was miserable and the bushes 
encroached ; some fields, by 1828 or 1829, at the time of the 
judge's death, began to be given up. John A. Washington, 
the nephew of the judge, succeeds ; the woods still gamed ; 
field after field, under slave and master's cultivation, went 
back to primeval forest. At about 1839 or 1840, Colonel 
Washington died, and in the month of April or May, 1842, 
the widow and her children were, Uke Adam and Eve, from 
Paradise driven out. " Great Burnam Wood had come to 
Dunsinane " as in Macbeth ; the door was locked, the gate 



364 ALYAN- STEWAET. 

was shut, slavery's curse and the wilderness had expelled 
them from this ancient home of America's great man. This 
is slavery, sooner or later, everywhere ; the curse of Heaven 
is upon it. 

It would be a fraud on the people of New Jersey, so to 
construe their new Constitution, as the defendant's counsel 
had contended. There was not one in fifteen of the seventy- 
thousand who voted for its adoption, who would not glory 
and feel elevated by the act. To see these poor bondmen 
and their children free, must be matter of joy to all. The 
argument that they would not be so well oif, is too stale to 
be used, in 1845, in New Jersey. For if the argument 
proves anything it proves too much, and that it would be 
better for the great mass of mankind to be slaves, and that it 
is a desirable institution. On that point I have no more to 
say except that those who believe such doctrines can easily 
put themselves and families in possession of its blessings, as 
several of the slave States are so kind as not to refuse to 
those of Anglo-Saxon descent the^.:)ec^<?^ar^r^u^7e^e5 of that 
pleasant-spoken institution. 

To illustrate one of the abhorrent features of the institution 
in the slave States, Mr. Stewart, adverting to one of the 
positions of the opposite counsel, supposed the following 
case : An old man, said he, whom we will call Tinkem, lived 
in Trenton, once upon a time, and not being long for this 
world, called his ten sons around him and told them. My 
sons, I have but little to give you of worldly projoerty, and, 
therefore, in order to start the five oldest of you comfortably 
in this life, I give each of them one of their five younger 
brothers, to be his property — in other words, his slave for 
life, and his posterity after him. And you, the five youngest 
of my sons, must be the slaves of your elder brothers. I do 
this in conformity with the usage of the citizens of a large 
number of the States of this Union ! But the eldest son says, 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 365 

" Father, what are the riglits and prerogatives ^^^]^\vh wo 
shall, in that case, possess over our slave brothers V " 

"Oh," said the old man, "you will reduce tlieni to cluit- 
tels, or cattle — living, breathing property— that is all. It is 
perfectly legal, and you will be protected in the enjoyment 
of your property ; you are no longer to regard them as 
sentient beings ; you are to deprive them of all education, 
except the cart- whip instruction ; you are to make them 
know and feel that their every moment is to be regulated by 
your wish and will, and that they are subject to be sold, and 
worked, husband apart from wife, and Avife from husband ; 
and their children from both. So, now, my sons, take your 
slaves, and begone!" Now (continued Mr. Stewart), the 
story of this horrible deed reached the ears of the citizens of 
Trenton, and the sanctum of its editors. A burst of indigna- 
tion is the consequence. Everybody and every press exclaims 
" monster ! monster ! monster !" with one voice. It is taken 
up by thepeople, and the press of Philadelphia and New York, 
and language grows weak, and imagination weary, in search- 
ing for fitting epithets in which to condemn the foul and damn- 
ing act of this heartless old villain, Tinkem of Trenton ! Men 
come from a prodigious distance to get a sight of so much 
moral deformity, existing in a single man. The phrenologists 
come to examine his craniological developments, wondering 
what manner of man-monster he can be ; and the whole nation 
rings with the story, and but one opinion is expressed, every- 
where, in pubhc and in private — that of horror and astonish- 
ment. But, your Honors, pause in your honest outburst of 
indignation. Old Tinkem stands excused, in view of the f ict 
that not a week comes and goes in the regions of the sunny 
South, that does not furnish a parallel to this conduct. A 
slaveholding father there gives the children of his own body, 
by his bond-womaD, to be slaves for life, to his children by 
his free-woman— I mean his wife ! It is done in twelve 



366 ALVAN STEWAET. 

States out ot the seven and twenty of whicli this Union is 
composed, whenever the father wishes to endow his heir out 
of his possessions. And this I hold to be slavery in the 
length and breadth of its flagitiousness ; it is yet but one 
phase of its abounding villainy. The picture is startling, 
frightful, revolting; but it is neither overdrawn, nor too 
highly colored. 

Mr. S. replied to several subordinate points made, and authorities 
cited by the counsel of the defendants, which it is not supposed would 
materially improve the report of the argument. What is further said 
is a part of a report made of what Mr. S. said, by Mr. Otis, reporter 
of the New York "Evening Express," and what followed Mr. 
Stewart's close is the report of Mr. Otis also. 

Mr. Stewart drew his remarks to a close by appealing to 
the court very earnestly as to the high and solemn duty left 
to them to perform. It is yours, may it please your Honors, 
(he said), to put the last, the finishmg stroke upon slavery, 
in one of the noblest old States of this glorious confederation. 
It is an honor which you should covet. Let no man take 
it from you. Leave it not to other hands to finish so noble a 
work. What would the world say, to see a case like this 
argued as it has been before this court for two days, with the 
full light of this blessed and glorious Constitution shedding 
its rays upon it, turned off and decided against liberty, upon 
the worse than doubtful authority of a fcAV extinct and ex- 
ploded statutes, which stand repealed in your code by the 
voice of the people speaking through a convention of their 
choice — the acts of which they have also confirmed by their 
solemn votes ? May it please your Honors, I cannot believe 
that such will be your decision. I have too much faith in my 
kind for this. I feel that New Jersey will hold up the hands 
of this court in coming to the support of freedom and of free 
institutions in her borders. 



SLAVERY IN NEW JERSEY. 3G7 

Never can the act be regretted. Conscience will approve 
it. Time will approve it. Death-bed reflection will ai.i)rr,v<i 
it. Eternity and heaven will approve it. It has been lon-r, 
too long postponed. But it is not too late to come uj), nian- 
hke, statesmanlike, 23atriothke, godhke, and declare that it is 
indeed true, in the language of your now organic law, that 
within all your pleasant borders, at least, all mankind ai-e, by 
nature, entitled to perfect freedom in the possession of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

After Mr. SteAvart resumed Lis seat, there was a pause of some 
duration. The scene was quite impressive. The auditory was nu- 
merous and highly respectable, and such was the impressiveness with 
which the closing appeal of the advocate for freedom was delivered, 
that no one seemed to like to be the first to break tlie spell his 
eloquence had cast upon the assembly. At length, tlie Bench arose, 
the Chief Justice adjourned the court until to-morrow morning, and 
the hearing of the causes which have occupied our attention for these 
two days past was terminated. 

Note. — These causes were subsequently decided against the con- 
struction advocated by Mr. Stewart, Chief Justice Hornblower 
delivax^ng a dissenting opinion. 



LETTEK TO DE. BAILEY. 

New York, Aug. SOth, 1845. 

Dear Bailey: 

Sir, as you desired occasionally to know how I treated, 
and was treated by, the human beings Avho are travelling that 
journey, whose limit is a bourne from which no traveller 
returns or sends back intelligence of the beauties and glories 
of that undiscovered land, peopled with all the former gene- 
rations who have made a transit over this sorrowing globe — 
I hasten, at this point, to redeem my obligation to yon, spring- 
ing from that request, and give you a brief account of a recent 
journey, from which I returned this week, to the northern 
part of Vermont, bordering on Canada line, where my four 
sisters reside. I make an annual pilgrimage to visit them. 
Their husbands, except one, are thorough working liberty 
men. 

I happened to leave Troy on the morning the shilling boats 
ran the seventy miles from Troy to Whitehall, on lake Cham- 
plain, through the iSTorthern Canal. I found myself on one 
of our very hot days, thermometer at 89°, Fahrenheit, with 
a hundred and twenty gentlemen and ladies, crowded into 
one of the narrow packets. As night approached, we learned 
there would be no berths for sleeping, as we were a dense 
mass of li\ing flesh, which filled the boat. Everything be- 
tokened a miserable and sweltering night, in which there was 
no calculating the limits of endurance, or the bounds of for- 
bearance necessary to bring us through this purgatorial state, 
in which all that was dissolvable or which might be in solu- 
tion, in each man's composition, seemed not only to exude, 



LEITER TO 1)K. liAILKY. 309 

hut flow in silent currents tbrongh tlie nnniimLcred porspira- 
tory outlets of our different tabernacles of clay. This ni^^lit 
was to be passed in head-topping or ijcrpendicular sleep. It 
was truly a severe night. But to mitigate its horrors, two 
Methodist ministers of the northern ])art of the Xew York 
Conference, one about sixty-five and the other about forty- 
five, were found in the middle of the boat, in the forepart of 
the night, making loud assertions against modern Liberty 
party Abolitionists, while they justified slaveholders and 
southern institutions. The younger one, though a man of 
some talents, seemed a pro-slavery f•^natic, so bitter in his 
soul against Abolitionists, that, had his power been equal to 
his malice, there would not have been one of us left unburied, 
whether dead or alive. I first took them for slaveholders 
peddling the peculiar institutions of the South, in small quanti- 
ties at the North, to suit purchasers. The first question I put 
to them, was, is slavery right, or wrong ? They both replied, 
and often asserted, they would not answer that question ; that 
had nothing to do with the question ; but they said the ques- 
tion was, what shall we do with the slaves ? I pressed these 
men repeatedly to answer my question, is slavery right, or 
wrong ? But they said tliey would not answer me. I then 
told them if slavery was right, we had nothing to do about 
it, and had no business to intermeddle with it ; and it seemed 
to me (as I by this time discovered they were clergymen and 
the whole boat was listening), that in men at their time of 
life, as professed teachers of the entire word of God, the spiri- 
tual fathers and teachers in the land, it was a dereliction of 
duty for them to refuse to let us know whether it loas right 
to steal men and women from Africa, and in chains bring 
them to our soil, and sell them like brutes, work them with- 
out wages, and keep them on the most wretched and scanty 
fare, and work them in the burning sun under the gashing 
lash, and, if the master pleased, as he often did, whether it 

16* 



370 ALVAN STEWART. 

was right for him to sell children from their parents, and a 
wife from her husband, and deprive them of the Bible, and all 
the lights of immortaUty, except a selfish, ungodly religion, 
which was preached to them, saying: ''Slaves obey your 
masters, God commands it, for slavery is an institution of 
God, and if you, the slaves, wish to go to Heaven, you must 
work as hard as you can spring for the master, and be care- 
ful and never steal any of your master's pigs, chickens, corn, 
or watermelons." Cannot you inform us, sirs, said I, whether 
such an institution of robbery of God's poor children is right 
or wrong, or not ; or is it too deep for you to decide ? They 
answered they would not say, whether it was right or wrong. 
Then for the first time, they had reason to learn both the 
wickedness and meanness of their position by an overwhelm- 
ino- laugh of contempt which saluted then* ears, from the 
audience. I then stated that there was not a minister in the 
entire South, who dared preach the most important essential 
truths of Christianity to the slave ! Oh ! said they, the min- 
isters of the South do not preach politics to the slaves. That, 
I replied, was the reason they did not preach the whole Gos- 
pel. Why, is the Gospel a pohtical gospel, said they, or one 
of them ? Yes, said I, it is, and I am sorry you do not know 
it. The first great elementary political rights, are also reli- 
gious ones ; that a man owns his own body and soul, has a 
right to appropriate and enjoy the faculties of that soul and 
body, and is bound to enlighten that mind ; the man has the 
political and religious right to his wife, and the wife the same 
to her husband ; and these parents have a political right to 
train up their children in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord. Children obey your parents, is a command of God ; 
and it is a political right of these parents to exact obedience; 
but slavery says, " no, obey your masters." The right of 
worshipping God according to the dictates of your own con- 
science is one of the greatest of political rights — that alone, 



LETTER TO DR. BAILEY. 371 

enjoyed by the slave, would set him free, lor there is no slave 
but feels his right of conscience violated, in serving a master 
as a slave, by force. Finally, after a great deal of Jesuitical 
pettifogging on the subject, evincing trick, and heartless 
devices to delude, they said they were opposed to slavery, 
in the abstract. On which, I asked them if they were 
opposed to the toothache in the abstract? (An overwhehn- 
ing laugh.) They were angiy, and insinuated that tliLs was 
no comparison at all, and that the audience were not well- 
bred ! They then said they would preach Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified to the slave. To that I replied, that is the 
correct doctrine, for everlasting justice was the fundamental 
of Christ's religion. The younger priest arose and in a rage 
said, there was no such thing in the Bible — Paul did not say 
so, Christ did not say so, and that I was wiser than Paul and 
Christ. The audience cried, shame, horror, shame on such 
priests and such a religion, and this priest went muttering, in 
a passion, on deck to get fresh air. " Whatsoever ye icould 
men^'^ etc., I supposed proved the justice of Christ's religion. 
Much was said in two hours between me and these wicked 
apologists of slavery — enough to make 2 small book. But I 
will say, I never saw an audience so rapidly converted to 
truth as this audience was, by the shameful absurdities of 
these ministers, until these two men might fairly and candidly 
have been said to have renounced the great corner-stone 
truths of Christianity, to bolster up the abhorred system of 
slavery. Terrible thought, that a man should strip God of 
his glorious attributes, in order to make the devil respect- 
able I 

A little before daylight, Ave left the packet and Avent on 
board the steamer Saranac, at Whitehall, and at 8, a.m., of that 
day, at breakfast, Avhile passing over the military classic Avaters 
of Champlain, near Ticonderoga rums, a conversation broke 
out at the table as to the cause of the city of Washington 



372 ALVAN STEWAET. 

falling into the hands of the British in the summer of 1814, in 
the late war, when I replied, it was slavery which was the 
source of our weakness, disgrace, and defeat on this painful 
occasion. Tavo well-dressed men, who turned out to be 
slaveholders, one from Georgia and the other from Virginia, 
informed us that no part of our country was better prepared 
to resist an enemy than a slave State, as slaves loved their 
masters so well they would fight bravely for them. I felt 
obhged to deny that this was the history of the country, and 
to remark that our people, with more men than the British, 
the President of the United States, Mr. Madison, the Secre- 
tary of War and heads of departments, with several thou- 
sand of the best marksmen in America, gathered from ten 
miles square and the adjacent States of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia, who met the British Commodore with his liberty 
sailors at Bladensburgh — our men retreated over sandhill 
after sandhill, and the President at their head, with the best 
opportunity to have met and conquered these sailors, but in- 
stead, they retreated to Washington City, and broke in per- 
fect confusion, each man fleeing to his home, leaving the 
Capitol to be sacked, burnt and plundered without resistance. 
Gen. Smith of Georgetown, D. C, told me, in 1818, while 
passing over this very ground in a journey I was taking to 
Washington City, that he commanded a brigade in this fleeing 
army of ours, and that the secret of our disgraceful flight 
was, that a story had been circulated through the District 
and adjacent counties of the two States, that on that day the 
slaves were to rise and assert their liberty ; and that each 
man more feared the enemy he had left behind in the shape 
of a slave, in his own house or plantation, than he did any- 
thing else. The ofiicer and soldier had their minds distracted 
with the possibility of this insurrection, said Gen. Smith, and 
therefore fled to their homes before an inferior force, and left 
Washington to the mercy of its captors. In the Revolution, 



LETTER TO DI{. UAir.KY. 373 

South Carolina, I think in 1777, sent a committee to the 
Continental Congress, at Philadelphia, apologizing for not fur- 
nishing the quota of the conscription of troops designated l)y 
Congress for that State, for fear that tlieir slaves would arise 
and assert their liberty, when they discovered tlie weakness 
of the whites, after sending forward their legal war-contin- 
gent to the war of Independence. Where would have been 
our victory, the same autumn of '77, at Saratoga, or our 
finally acknowledged Independence, if all had been in the 
position of South Carolina ? Slavery alone would have made 
the whites slaves of England for the sake of American wliites 
enslaving the men of Africa. There was a great deal said 
between us. For the Virginian, I drew a contrast between 
the State of New York and Virginia. In 1790, Virginia, with 
one-third more territory, with the finest soil, and the most 
beautiful climate on earth, had 70,000 inhabitants. The State 
of Xew York 300,000 people. jSTow Virginia 130,000 or 
140,000, and New York 2,600,000 — double the population — 
and the city of New York could buy and sell Virginia alone, 
and they might throw in North Carohna into the bargain ; 
such was the curse of slave-labor, and prosperity of honored 
free labor. I proj^osed to make a slave of the Georgian on 
the spot, as it Avas probable I was the strongest, according to 
his ow^n principles, and inquired for the objection, and what 
he had to say, why I should not make a slave of him, on the 
spot. He said that would be wrong, as he was a Avhite man ; 
but it would be right to enslave an African, although he was 
only a forty-eighth part African and the other forty-seven parts 
were Anglo-Saxon. The people raise^ a shout at his propo- 
sition, w^hich learnt him he was on the beautiful free Avaters 
of Champlain instead of the slave-bound Savannah. 

Our cause in Vermont seems firmly fixed in the affections 
of the true-hearted. 

On Simday, the 24th of August, I spoke two hours in the 



374 ALVAN STEWART. 

middle of the day, to a large audience in the Brick Church 
in Cambridge, in that State — six or seven towns were repre- 
sented, and some of the audience came sixteen miles. 

Vermont will do her duty. On ray return on Monday, I 
came twenty-seven miles by 10 a.m., to Burlington, and then 
passed up the lake to Whitehall, where, at half after 5 p.m., 
a most respectable bady of men and women, between seventy 
and eighty, went on board the canal packet, to pass through 
the Champlain Canal to Troy. We were packed away quite 
densely in the boat : and after dark, the captain, to my sur- 
prize, came and said, I heard your combat with the Metho- 
dist clergyman, when you went up, and I wish you to speak 
on the subject of slavery in order to pass the time. I told 
him I was unwell and had been so used up with the hot 
weather, that I could not do it. He asked me a second time, 
and I for the same reason declined. We had gentlemen and 
ladies from Boston, New Bedford, and ten to twelve Eng- 
lish gentlemen from Montreal, several from New York, and 
various parts. Mr. Randall, an old sea captain and a gentle- 
man of wealth from New Bedford, moved that Mr. Stewart be 
requested to speak, and it appeared to be carried by an 
almost unanimous aye, with the exception of two male noes 
and one female. And these three noes were two slaveholders 
from Virginia, and the woman a West India Cuban slave- 
holder. And to this strong invitation I replied, I did not 
feel able to speak, and declined. These slaveholders at this 
point spoke, and said, as much, it was well I had declined, 
for they had paid their money on the boat, and were not to 
be disturbed with abolition. Upon that, a gentleman moved 
that all who desired to hear Mr. Stewart speak, should rise up. 
Every gentleman and lady in the cabin arose as with a hasty 
spring, except the three slaveholders. Upon that I arose 
and thanked the firm and pertinacious friends of the liberty 
of speech. I stated I would now speak as ray right had 



LETTER TO DR. BAILKY. 376 

been denied by these slaveholders. Upon that these slavc- 
holdmg men protested I should not speak ; it" I did, they 
^vould leave the boat and complain to the company. I seated 
myself for a moment, and the audience took tlieni in hand ; 
and such a tongue-dressing as they received from the gentle- 
men present, should be a caution to their successors in time 
to come. The friends of the freedom of speech said to tliem, 
do you mean to padlock us as you do your slaves? If wo 
wish to discuss geography, politics, agriculture, religion, 
slavery, or abohtion, are you three beings to sit here and tell 
us seventy people, what we may or may not say, and when ? 
You are most wretchedly mistaken if you expect to apply 
your plantation discipline to this boat, and as to your getting 
out of the boat in the night, that you may do ; and as to your 
threatening that you w^ill tell the proprietors of the boat and 
the w^orld, to injure this line, we defy your impotent malice 
— there are men on board of this boat Avho believe in free 
discussion of all things, who could buy and sell all the slave- 
holders who ever did, or ever will pass over these waters. 
Do you think, said one of the audience, if a boat-load of 
slaveholders on the Savannah, Ga., River, wished to discuss 
the inimitable justice of working men, women, and children 
under the lash, without wages, and it was opposed by these 
travellers from Vermont or New York, as a disagreeable 
question to them to hear, would the slaveholders be silent ? 
iSTo. The probabihty is they would commit murder by throw- 
ing the three men overboard to drown. I, being seated, 
must say I never saw our principles vindicated more prac- 
tically in my life, and those two men and the woman were 
perfectly demolished. 

The audience said, Mr. Stewart, go on ; and as I arose again 
they gave three tremendous cheers. I drew a picture by 
comparison between Xew York and Virginia and the Caro- 
lines, showed our prosperity, riches and glory — the poverty, 



376 ALVAN STEWART. 

misery, smallness of population, ignorance of their people, 
the whipping out labor without wages, the petit-larceny 
course of things, and the vast districts of forsaken and slave- 
cursed land, where the fox climbs into the window, and the 
deer bounds in the thicket of a second wilderness, where, 
seventy years ago, might have been found the piratical hospi- 
tality of those who gave away what they never earned. At 
this point the slaveholders hissed me. Ah, said I, that hiss 
shows the malice of the serpent, the intelligence aAd bravery 
of the goose. The audience gave a most powerful cheer and 
made all their canes rattle with approbation. Whereupon 
one of these creatures said, " you (meaning me) are an ass." 
Ah, said I, a man who is agitated, often will speak of his 
nearest connections, and that this fellow had better have been 
silent rather than to have conferred upon the poor speaker a 
title which had so long been considered the brightest jewel 
in the crown of this slaveholder's race, and that from Balaam's 
ass their great ancestor, who once spoke, to the one you have 
just heard, there has been an articulate bray in the family 
when any one wished to raise a man who was a slave above 
the long-eared brute. 

There Avas another mighty roar of three times three from 
the audience, which made these fellows get up and go upon 
deck, where one of them came and stamped with all his 
might directly over my head — upon this the captain darted 
up and silenced him at once. The audience were greatly en- 
raged at this last indignity. I spoke till bed-time ; and when 
I dismissed I never saw an audience more indignant at slave- 
holders and their institutions, and the conduct of these men 
had done mfinitely more than I could, to confirm their hatred 
of slavery and their abominable cruelties toward their fellow- 
men. This was the topic of conversation until we separated. 

You will excuse the length of this letter, and believe me, 
as ever, yours, etc. 



THE ACT OF 1793. 

How came an act so sa^^guinary to stain the pages of our 
Federal Statute Book f 

By this act every inch of the free thirteen States is reduced 
to the meanest debasement. By this act, Congress sends the 
prowhng slaveholder, armed with bowie-knives, pistols, 
halters, fetters, and bloodhounds in full cry, through the 
free States, pursuing the fugitive slave. The northern State 
judges, justices of the peace, as well as those of the Federal 
Government, the State constables, sheriifs and deputies, the 
United States marshals and deputies in these States, by the 
authority of this awful and ferocious decree of 1793, were 
commanded to join in the hue and cry of the kidnappers of 
the South and to re-kidnap, bind, fetter and certify buck to 
the prison of the hopeless, the victmis of a nation's atrocity. 

During the summer of 1787, six weeks were consumed by 
the southern delegates at Philadelphia, in that convention 
which formed the Federal Constitution, contending that all 
laws to regulate commerce must be enacted by two-thirds of 
the members elected to the House of Representatives and 
Senate of the United States. The delegates from the North 
and East declared this government one in Avhich a majority 
must govern ; and utterly refused to place a perfect control 
of the government iu the hands of the South, wlio had little 
or no commerce to regulate. The South then said if they 
surrendered this proposition they must have equivalents. 
And they demanded that the Constitution should be so made 
that Congress should have no power to interdict the old 
African slave trade, from the 4th of March, 1789, until the 1st 



378 ALVAN STEWART. 

of January 1808 ; so that the South might issue her procla^ 
mation to the four corners of the globe, summoning all the 
villains, pirates, kidnappers and man-thieves, ^vho wandered 
over the face of the earth, to come to the great murder feast 
of nineteen years, and plunge into the centre of Africa and burn 
and destroy her towns, assault and capture her men, women 
and children, and rnake her rivers desolate and leave her 
lands without inhabitants, and bring the survivors as slaves.- 
to cultivate the plantations of the southern Democrats. 

To this proposition the North consented and basely bowed. 
And it was so. The South then said, 07ie good tu7'n deserves 
another^ and after we have risked our lives in robbing 
Africa of her people and brought them to our country, we 
ought, as a basis of representation in Congress, to count five of 
these slaves the same as three w^hites, and thus make them 
into a dumb constituency. Agreed, said the East and North. 
And by virtue of this slave representation, twenty-five 
members now hold their seats in the House of Represen- 
tatives. 

Nearly four years rolled by after the new Constitution 
went into operation, and for four years had Africa sent up to 
Heaven the lamentations of ruined and rifled nations ; when 
the South made her third experiment and found a lower 
depth in northern meanness, than depravity herself had ever 
sounded, or legislative impudence ever fathomed. The 
South told the North that these ungrateful sons and 
daughters of Africa, after they had kindly brought them 
from a land of Paganism to a land of Christian whips and 
pious chains, to a land of human back-furrowed Democracy^ 
to a land in which the Republican master has a better right 
to the African's body, w^ife and children, than the African 
man has to himself or to them, still, with all these rights 
secured to the southrons by the Constitution, these people will 
run to your free States in the North, and we shall lose our 



THE ACT OF 1793. 379 

trouble and money in kidnapping tliem, and bringing Uieni over 
the breadth of the Athxntic, unless you Avill kindly, when they 
flee into your free States, agree by law to be our wolf-dogs, 
and deny them food and shelter, and run back and howl on 
their track and re-kidnap them — we shall lose the gi-eat object 
toe had in forming the Union — which was to spread the aegis 
of the Constitution over man-stealing, piracy and blood, and 
thus gain a constitutional respectability in this pursuit, which 
we could not otherwise obtain. We hope the dear Xorth 
will not refuse us their aid ; otherwise the constitutional pro- 
vision of nineteen years will be of no use, and the great capital 
we have embarked in the slave trade will be a total loss ; and 
m fact slavery itself will fall to the ground and must be 
abandoned, unless the Christian North agree to be our trusty 
w^atch-dogs to run fugitives down and take them up. 
" Agreed," said the North and East ; and thereupon in con- 
junction with the South, passed the nefarious act of Con- 
gress of 12th February, 17S3. 

A half century of crime has all but elapsed, which has no 
parallel, as between independent States, in the annals of 
venality or the crookedness of perversion. Forty-nine years 
rolled to eternity's shore, bearing on their front wrongs done 
by man to man, not surpassed in outrage, nor equalled in 
refined malignity, by any invention of our race, in which 
the contest w^as between the profoundest abjectness of 
subserviency on our side, and the most sanguinary avarice 
on the other. 

nancy's case. 

In February, 1842, the Supreme Court of the U. S. at 
Washington considered this act, m which the following facts 
appeared. About sixteen years ago, an aged slaveholder, 
in the State of Maryland, being a man of a kind heart, and 



380 ALVAN STEWAPwT. 

having a colored woman possessing many virtues, by the 
name of Nancy, of the age of twenty years, he emancipated 
her, as he supposed. This slaveholder, being careless, did 
not give the young woman her legal manumission papers. 
She came about fifteen miles from the North line of Mary- 
land into Pennsylvania ; where, by her industry and good 
conduct, she, in the course of a year, recommended herself 
to the affections of a very respectable free colored man, 
whom she married. This colored man had a comfortable 
estate, which, with their industry, maintained them in a 
very respectable manner. Years went by, and in the course 
of time they were the parents of four fine children. The old 
slaveholder being dead, and his son learning that this woman 
had not received the legal manumission papers the law re- 
required, and being moved by the infernal avarice and 
cruelty of slavery, about three years ago took two or three 
loafers, and being armed with pistols and bo^yie-knives, he 
went to a Pennsylvania justice of the peace, living three or 
four miles from this woman, and obtained a warrant to arrest 
her and all of her children and bring them before the justice ; 
where the slaveholder said he would have it tried to know 
Avhether the woman and children were his or not. 

The slaveholder and his myrmidons pitched in at an unsus- 
pected hour, about sundown, upon this poor mother and 
her httle brood, and instantly dragged them out of their 
house ; the mother screaming, kidnappers ! kidnappers ! kid- 
nappers ! The children burst forth in the most terrific cries, 
which were heard by their father in the field, who came run- 
ning to the house. The wagon by this time, without any 
explanation to the distracted husband and father, having 
started, the horses going full jump, and the broken-hearted 
father following and hallooing to stop, until the wagon passed 
out of sight in the distance. The father came to a tavern, 
near the justice, where the kidnappers stopped, and the jus- 



THE ACT OF 1793. ^1 

tice, being from home that evening, the kidnapper told the 
husband he would take good care of his wife and cliildren 
until next morning, 9 a.m., when they woukl go before the 
justice, and the cause should be tried. The husband, behi.'v- 
ing what the kidnapper told him, and the doors of his own 
house having been left wide open, he conchided, at the re- 
quest of his wife, to go back and shut the doors and secure 
things at his plundered home, and come back early the next 
morning ; the slaveholder having solemnly sworn he would 
not remove the family without the justice decided, on hear- 
ing the case, ho had a right so to do. But behold the dread- 
ful villainy of a slaveholder : at midnight, when the neighbor- 
hood were locked in sleep, he and his gang arose and took 
the woman and children, and before daylight, he had driven 
with such speed, that they were secured in one of the great 
prison houses, to-wit, the State of Maryland. At daylight 
the broken-hearted husband went to the justice, who told 
him that the woman and children had never been brought 
before him ; and from the statement of the tavern-keeper, it 
was obvious to the poor colored man and his neighbors, that 
his wife and children had surely been kidnapped without 
trial ; the husband followed to the Maryland line, which he 
did not dare pass over ; as by a law of Maryland (though 
contrary to the Constitution of the U. S.), a free colored 
man coming mto Maryland, might be taken and sold into 
perpetual slavery. Oh ! the sorrows of this wof7ia?i and this 
man; all of their hopes stranded for life; their free-born 
children instantly turned to slaves. The neighbors of the 
colored man, in Pennsylvania were incensed and highly in- 
dignant. There is a law in Pennsylvania punishing kidnap- 
pers from three to ten years in the Penitentiary of that 
State ; and imder that law, the neighbors of the bereaved 
husband, went before the Grand Jury of a Court of Oyer 
and Termmer of the State of Pennsylvania, and got the 



382 ALVAN STEWAET. 

Maryland villains indicted for kidnapping. Upon the indict- 
ment being presented to the Governor of Pennsylvania, lie 
made a requisition upon the Governor of Maryland, to 
deliver up the kidnapper for trial to the Court of Pennsyl- 
vania. The Governor of Maryland refused to obey the re- 
quisition or deliver up the felon. 

A correspondence finally took place between the govern- 
ors of the two States, by which it was agreed that their 
respective States sbould pass a legislative agreement on 
this subject, into a laAv, which was done accordingly. The 
substance of this agreement was, that the cause against the 
kidnapper was to be tried in the Pennsylvania Court of Oyer 
and Terminer, and if this court decided against the kidnap- 
per, the cause was to be taken by writ of error to the 
Supreme court of Pennsylvania ; and if this court affirmed 
the judgment against the kidnapper, it was then by a writ of 
error to be taken before the Supreme Court of the United 
States for an ultimate decision. 

Tlie Pennsylvania Courts decided against the kidnapper 
and in favor of their own statute, and sentenced the culprit, 
I believe, to seven years in the State Prison. According to 
the agreement, the cause was brought by writ of error 
before the Supreme Court of the United States, at Washing- 
ton, in the winter of 1842; where the most remarkable deci- 
sion was made, by this Court, after hearing the respective 
Attorney Generals of the States aforesaid. 

I say remarkable^ for nothing in the 19th century had 
transcended the decisions of the iTth, by Jeffreys, Scroggs 
and Pollefexen in the bloody trials of Lord Russell and 
Algernon Sidney, until this master and terrific decision of 
judicial tyranny flung all the judicial Neros of England into 
the regions of forlorn and returnless insignificance. The 
court decided that the State decisions of Pennsylvania were 
wrong, and annulled them. It further decided that the part 



/ TUE Aci OF 1793. 383 

of the Act of Congre^ of ^1 '793, which requinMl Stafo jud.^rs 
and justices of the peace to issue warrants, at tlie instance 
of slaveholders or their agents, against fugitive slaves, and 
hear the cause and grant certificates of owncrshij) to tlie 
claimant of a fugitive, was unconstitutional, null and voi<l ; 
as Congress, the court said, had no right to require State 
officers to execute an Act of Congress, or of tlio Federal 
Government. 

I would remark here that every fugitive slave, who has 
been sent back to slavery, for 49 years, by a State judge, 
State justice of the peace, recorder or mayor, has been 
judicially kidnapped^ and is now held in slavery by force of 
an unconstitutional decision. Dreadful thought, that the 
thirteen free States have been obeying an unconstitutional 
law, and committing the crime of judicial kidnapping, as 
though the fate of the slave was not hard enough ; it seems 
that every State judge, justice, mayor or recorder, who have 
done this shocking, bloody and dirty work, had no business, 
by law, to do it ; and that any man would have been justi- 
fied in going into their unlawful and unconstitutional court, 
it having no jurisdiction of the ' fugitive, and taken him 
away from the State functionary by force, and the State 
judicial officer could not protect himself or the court ; and 
the individual who had set all such fugitive-State-judicial 
functionaries at defiance, would have been upheld by the 
Supreme Court of the United States. — Oh ! the poor slave, 
what hast thou not suffered ? 

The court decided, however, that a judge of the United 
States courts might issue a warrant, under the Act of 1793, 
and arrest a fugitive slave, at the instance of a claimant, and 
hear the proofs and grant the master or his agent a certificate, 
returning the fugitive into captivity. There are only three 
Buch officers in the State of New York, to wit, Judge Conklin 
of Auburn, Judge Betts of tlie city of New York, both 



384 ALVAN STEWAET. 

district judges of the United States, and Judge Smith 
Thompson, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. The court further decided, which is the 
truly fearful and alarming portion of their decision, that the 
slaveholder, or his agent, may, Avhenever and wherever he 
sees fit, arrest a fugitive slave without warrant or any 
authority fi'om a State or United States judge or justice, or 
any functionary on the earth, and take the said fugitive into 
the service of the slaveholder ; and no State law, writ of 
habeas corpus, right of trial by jury, or any State law 
intended to designate a mode of trial for the fugitive, shall 
stand in the way of the master : or in other words, the mas- 
ter may seize any person he sees fit, in the State of New 
York, to call his slave ; or the master may walk triumphantly 
over all State laws enacted for the defence of human liberty, 
and carry off his prey to his den. According to this dread- 
ful decision, any man in the State of New York, who assumes 
that he is a slaveholder, may lay his hands on any other man 
or woman in the State, claiming him or her by word of 
mouth, as his or her slave, who has escaped from him in some 
slave State ; and although the person claimed may cry and 
protest, that he or she was born free and ichite^ and was 
never out of this State ; still no trial, no proceeding whatso- 
ever, can be put in operation to investigate the identity of 
the person claimed, or look into the matter, or stay the potent 
slaveholder, but the victim must go to a slave State as a 
slave, even if it was the son of the governor of this State, or 
the governor himself; and the court insultingly tells us the only 
remedy of this kidnapped person, is to be found after he or 
she has reached the master's home, in a slave State, to sue, in 
a civil action, the master, in a slave court, for his liberty. 
Ah ! glorious opportunity, to go to a southern lawyer penni- 
less, the master having taken your money, the master holding 
a pistol to your breast, forbidding your leaving the planta- 



THE ACT OF 1703. 3^5 

tion ; and if you do, he may legaUy slioot you doa<l, if yon 
will not stop when bidden; you are 1,000 miles from all r,f 
your witnesses, and now the poorest man in the ereatinn of 
God— a slave ; and then you are told to liti,Lraie with your 
master in a slave State, before slave judges and a slavehold- 
ing jury ! 

Why not stop and have the htigation with the master in 
this State, where he first sets up his claim, by whicli the 
burden of proving you his slave will be thrown on him, and 
you will have judges and jurors who are not slaveholders, 
and also your witnesses to prove your freedom, and friends 
and means to employ counsel ? The answer to this seems to 
be, the great, lordly, sovereign slaveholder must not be 
hindered by your State court trials— his business is too 
important for hmi to be delayed from home to htigate the 
freedom of a man or woman. The slaveholder has said tliat 
A. is his slave and that is enough, and ought and must satisfy 
those fastidious fools at the Xorth ; his word and character 
is like the chevaher Bayard's — above fear and without 
reproach. Again, if the slave sues in a slave State for his 
freedom, the slave will have the burden of proof thrown on 
him — of proving a negative— that he is not a slave. 

If he has any colored blood in his veins, the law comes to 
the master's aid, with the presumption that he is a slave ; and 
further, if ever so white, and he is doing work as a slave — 
then if he sues for freedom, the cruel and malignant law of 
the South presumes he is a slave, or he would 7iot be in tlio 
condition of the slave. Now this rule of presumption is in 
exact hostility to the common law, that great inheritance of 
English liberty from our Saxon ancestors. By the common 
law all men are presumed honest, just, and free, until the con- 
trary appears by proof. 

It was said when this decision Avas announced it produced 
a shock, as though a mine had exploded under the capitol, 

17 



ALVAN STEWART. 

There are nine judges of the Supreme Court of the United 
States ; five of whom are slaveholders. It is said six opinions 
were written at the time, in which a great variety of judg- 
ment prevailed. 

It is said by Judge Baldwin, that the Constitution executed 
itself, and that no such act as 1793 was needed, and the act 
was void. But an average of opinion seemed to conduct the 
court to the conclusions above referred to. If we are to 
consider that astounding branch of the decision as law, by 
which the slaveholder comes to the North and exercises the 
slaveholder's elementary power, not right, the same as in 
the woods of Africa during the tune of the slave trade ; then 
it would seem that while we have declared it piracy and 
death to take a man with a view to enslave him, on the coast 
of Africa ; that at the same time one man may take another 
and make a slave of him, in Oneida County, be he white or 
black, and take him to a slave State and there use him as a 
slave ; and that the only remedy for this kidnapping is a civil 
suit, prosecuted by the helpless slave against his master, 
before a slave court and jury. This would not give one in 
ten thousand an opportunity to escape. For it must be 
remembered that Pennsylvania and the free States, and ours 
amongst the rest, have passed laws against kidnapping, by 
which these statutes have said that whoever shall take and 
violently carry away any person from this State, or sell said 
person with a view to enslave him, without lawful authority, 
shall be imprisoned, varying from three to ten years, and, I 
believe, in some, for life. 

But this decision overthrows those most important laws, 
enacted for the feeble and defenceless, as the great bulw^arks 
of human liberty, and turns the free or slave States into slave- 
kidnapping ground ; where a man may commit the crime of 
enslaving, in perfect safety ; and his only danger is that the 
slave may sue for his liberty in a slave State, though that he 



THE ACT OF 1793. 3g7 

cannot do without the master's permission, as lie cannot Ir.-ivo 
the master's premises without his consent, and that will never 
be given to go and consult lawyers to invalidate the master's 
title. And if the slave attempts to leave the master's jiro- 
mises by force, the master can shoot him dead if it ))e necessary 
to enforce obedience or restrain him. If the nation, or the 
free States dreamed for a moment of the horrible position in 
which they w^ere placed, by the late decision of the 8ui)reme 
Court of the United States, under the act of 1793, there would 
be one universal mustering of all men, -women and children 
for the repeal of the act of 1793 ; and also for a declaratory 
act by Congress, abolishing, if in its power, the legal effect 
of this ?no7istroics ojmiio?! of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. 

To this frightful precipice has slavery conducted this nation, 
at last, so that now no man has any shelter left beneath the 
magna cliarta of American Independence, for his own liberty, 
his wife's, or his child's, for a single day ; for he may be 
made a slave in Oneida County, in the State of Xew York, 
any moment, and cannot appeal to any law in this State to 
prevent it. No, the writ of habeas corpus, the right of trial by 
jury, are all swept by the board, and a man now holds his 
liberties by no better tenure than a kidnapper's mercy. 

Good God, have mercy on us and destroy slavery, for it is 
destroying life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. 
I hope our friends will in the next two years, present the 
petitions to abolish the act of 1793 for signatures, to every 
householder, his wife, and children over fourteen years of 
ao-e throughout the Empire State; going two and two from 
house to house, pleading for a deliverance of this Republic. 

Abolish the act of 1793 and we place Canada on Mason 
and Dixon's line ; or, in other words, we set Canada down 
on the line of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and 3Iissouri, 
and slavery would aboUsh itself in those four great States in 



388 ALVAN STEWART. 

three years. The slaves would have nothing to do but walk 
over the line. 

The abolition of the act of 1793 delivers the North from 
the basest position ever occupied by States or individuals. It 
gives us back our bibles and the riches of immortality, which 
the act of 1793 makes us agree to forego and renounce. 
Now, we abjure the doctrines of Jesus Christ the Son of God, 
breathing mercy and love to all, to become the allies of the 
cruel, and the stirrup-holders of kidnappers, and the collar- 
wearers of the southern slaveholders. 

Zd January y 1843. 



EXTRACTS FROM 

KEPLY TO THE JU:^IUS TPwACT 

OF THE REV. CALVIN COLTOX, 1813. 

We cannot forbear asking Mr. Colton, cannot Congress, 
who made this law in 1793, repeal it in 1843 ? Tliere cannot 
be two opinions on this snbject, among learned or unlearnerl, 
Christians or Jews, slaveholders or Liberty party men. If 
Congress may repeal this law, the Act of 12th of February, 
1793, which it has passed, what would be the position of the 
slave ? Precisely the same as though Canada was to slide 
down and be bounded on the South by Mason and Dixon's 
line — precisely the same as though Canada was the northern 
boundary hne of the slave States. The moment the slaves 
passed into Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, IlUnois or Iowa, 
from a slave State, they would he free, by the laws of slavery, 
and the law of nations. They could not be pursued or ar- 
rested. They would be free. How long would slavery stand 
in the border States of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, or 
Missouri ? Not five years, if we take away the power of 
reclamation. This act of Congress in abridging the natural 
right of the slave to seek his liberty, is the act of the free 
States in common with the slave. But for this law, slavery 
would have been overthrown. But for the Xorth agreeing 
to stand as a hull-dog sentiy on the line between freedom and 
slavery, covenanting to re-kidnap the fleeing, innocent man 
and woman, and restore him or her in chains to his oppressor 
slavery would have fallen to the ground, by the power of 
flight alone. 



390 ALVAN STEWART. 



BALLOT-BOX POWER. 

According to slaveholders, their exponents and apologists, 
every right they have acquired over the slaves by the laws, 
constitutions and compacts, are ballot-box powers, in their 
inception, and have all been voted for in the appointment or 
election of those individuals who created, made or passed 
these laws, constitutions or compacts. But slavery, tliough 
the highest of crimes, is a thing so much more sacred than 
any other human right, that when once voted into existence 
by ballot-box power, or if ballot-box intrenchments are 
thrown up around it, the ballot-box has spent its power, un- 
less it be to fortify the infernal institution, but has no power 
to overthrow, curb or restrain it ; when the ballot-box has 
once conferred any power on this piratical institution, it must 
remain inviolable, irrepealable, to-day, to-morrow, and for- 
ever ! ! So say slaveholders, and Mr. Colton and the Whigs, 
in the spirit of their arguments, in fivor of what we might 
suppose were truly peculiciT institutions, which, when once 
made, defy their creator, and become eternal. Yes, they are 
peculiar^ if having once got into existence, there is no way to 
get them out. But Mr. Colton has been so kind as to inform 
US how to get them out. It is by moral suasio7i. These 
institutions which will not yield to the omnipotence of the 
ballot-box, may still be kindly flattered out of existence ! 
Yes, they may be persuaded to die, but cannot be killed. 
The institution being so very humane and generous, it is to 
be presumed, that, to help justice and humanity, it will agree 
to dle^ from pure patriotism, and from an abhorrence of its 
own existence. But the difficulty still is, if Mr. Colton is 
right, that slavery cannot die, except through the ballot-box 
power ; for if you should persuade each slaveholder to give 
liberty to his slaves, in the District of Columbia, unless sla- 
very is forbidden by law, w^hat hinders another villain from 



EXTRACTS FROM REPLY TO THE JUNKS 'lUACT. 301 

setting up the business again, under the nojic of Congress ? 
But what is the use in pressing this argument further, or of 
sending an absurdity in hot pursuit after an inipossiMlity ! 

THE GREAT VOLCANO. 

Look at the absurdity of this reverend and crafty Whig. 
We are told over and over and over again, from page to page 
of his argument, that our mission of benevolence might l)e 
very proper, if we did not propose to overthrow tlie general 
welfare, and trample on contracts, compacts and moral obU- 
gations, by casting our votes where we have not the least 
chance of success, and if we were successful in getting a 
majority, we are, in all respects, perfectly powerless, as we 
have not a crumb of constitutional power by which to touch 
slavery, or even the hem of its garment, in state or nation, it 
is so sacredly guarded against every approach of humanity ; 
but still, by voting for these abolition objects, we defeat our- 
selves and the Whigs, and thus we may " throw the govern- 
ment of the States and nation into hands that will ruin us all, 
as they have heretofore tried to do, Avith no small success." 
What are we to gain by acting with Whigs, after the gentle- 
man has shown us that the Whigs cannot touch slavery even 
with a pair of tongs, for want of constitutional power ; and 
that all the Whigs can do, with that great slaveholder as 
President (who swallows daily the unpaid labor of 52 himian 
beings), Would be to prop, enlarge, fortify and strengthen 
slavery ? Let him not talk of the right of petition — when 
did Clay, or Calhoun, or Yan Buren ever come out in its 
favor ? And if the Whig party had power, and allowed us 
to discuss every proposition for curtailing and lopping off a 
branch or a twig of slavery, still this great constitutional 
Whig informs us (and the Whigs have adopted his legal 
advice by circulating his tract as their opinion) that however 
full of emancipation, justice and mercy, a Whig Congress 



392 ALVAN STEWART. 

might be, it could contrive no way or means to deliver or 
aid a single slave, without tearing the Constitution all to 
shreds and shivers, involving the comitry in flames and blood, 
from MontpeUer to Tallahassee, from the Pedee to the Sabine, 
from the Montauk to the mountains of rock, where there 
would be nothing to extinguish the flames of our dwellings, 
but the blood of our citizens ; and this universal massacre, 
would end in the extinction of black and white, bond and free, 
and convert this end of the continent into one vast sepulchre 
where no living man would survive to record the dismal catas- 
trophe, which had blotted a great empire from the map of 
the world, in defending the constitutionality of slavery! 
Alas, alas, alas, did ever nation live on the top of such a con- 
stitutional volcano before ? Yes, a volcano that never casts 
up its lurid flames and pumice stones, as long as you feed it 
with constitutional gags, and the twenty slave-elected mem- 
bers of Congress ; also by throwing down into its voracious 
crater throat seven new slave States and Florida, as a mere 
desert to be swallowed by its unappeasable voraciousness, 
with an eight years war for the extinction of the noble Semi- 
noles, at an expense of fifty millions ; she can contain within 
her mighty bowels, unpained, the ten miles square, and 8,000 
slaves and three slave dungeons ; she can circulate the slaves 
in coflled gangs, or by ship, all through her huge entrails ; 
she can hear within her the crying and groaning of the 
whipped millions, the mangled thousands and murdered hun- 
dreds, as they send up their daily cry to a nation's mercy, 
unmoved, untouched ; but let one petition for mercy or 
deliverance be presented, and then, oh ! the tremendous up- 
heavings, the unearthly sounds, the smoke, the pumice 
stones and ashes, which put out the sun of Liberty, and make 
it dark at noon, while the streams of boihng, bubbling, fiery 
lava pour down, sweeping all before them. And it seems to 
have been the business of Whigs and Democrats, with the 



EXTRACTS FKOM KKPLY TO 'JHE JUNILS TRACl. ;3!).3 

great ecclesiastical (lenominatioiis of tliis country, to cap the 
top of this mighty slaveholding volcano, that the prisorjcrs' 
cries bound in its caverns, and the rage consequent on a 
demand for their deliverance, might l)oth l)e sn|>)M(sscd in 
eternal silence. 

SLAVERY EIGHT, BECAUSE OF DISTRESS IX EN(JI,A.\D I 

Then, again, this Whig mouthpiece says there is distress 
in England among the operatives. 

Yes, that is true — there is slavery in Brazil, and in Cuba, 
there is a vast amount of highway robbery in Spain, but 
Spain does not make highway robbery an organic institution : 
and there is the burning of widows in the East Indies, or has 
been till of late, and females have ruined and cramped feet in 
China, and they murder, sometimes, innocent people in 
Cochin China, and they flog and work people for notliing 
in two State Prisons in this State, and men spend their lives 
in the mines of Mexico, Chili and Peru, and some men whip 
their wives m New York, some men are daily drunk and 
miserable, but Avomen-whipping and drunkenness are not 
defended institutions. What do all these things prove ? 
Why, according to this logician, that every abuse of man, 
which we can find existing on the earth, or crime committed 
against his happiness, that to be sure is an example, which 
authorizes us to adopt that abuse, and to put it into our Con- 
stitution and make laws for its defence, as an institution ; 
and if the institution be attacked for its inherent, self evident 
villainy, w^hy, then show that it is right ? Oh, no, show that 
some other people, ancient or modern, or individuals of this 
or that nation, have committed some vile offence against God 
and man, and that proves slavery a good institution. The 
abuses of the poor operatives m England are not a part 
of the English Constitution and laws, compelling them to 
suffer. 



394 ALYAN STEWAET. 



COLTON'S AIiGUME:N^T PARENT AND CHILD. 

But Mr. Colton has overthrown slavery after all ; for he 
says it is like the relations of husband and wife, parent and 
child, master and apprentice. He says the hnsband, parent 
and master have a i-ight to the service of the wife, the child, 
and apprentice, and so he says has the master to the slave's 
service, but not to his hody. He says the slave is entitled to 
his own body, if we understand him. He, speaking of the 
slave, says, " the service, not the person, is the property." 
This is new slave law, of Mr. Colton's — it is on the 8 th page 
of his tract, in which this discovery is made. He says tlie 
law gives command of the slave's person, so that the master 
may get his services. But he says, "neither master, nor 
father, nor society itself has jproperty in the persons of men, 
but God only." If a man owns his body, how can another 
man get a title to his services, except by contract ? and if any 
man can show a slave who has made a contract for a good 
consideration, for himself and his posterity, to work for 
nothing but the chance of being whipped, beaten, kicked, 
cuffed, and if he attempts to go away, who then agrees^ that 
the master may shoot him, and further agrees the master 
may sell his wife and children, and further agrees the master 
may pound him to death, if he does not work, and moreover 
agrees the master may sell him from his wife and children, and 
agrees that the master shall withhold all knowledge, and that 
he, the slave, shall never oic7i anything on earth — no, not a 
cow, a sheep, a hog or a goat, and that he contracted to 
stand forever, called a chattel, a thing, instead of a man — if 
he Avill show me one such case as this, I will agree that this 
man may be a slave, and his master a knave, and I will not 
try to change their condition. 

The husband and wife make a contract in marriage, which 
is reciprocal and for the mutual benefit of the parties, but the 



KXTRACTS FROM REPLY TO Til 10 JUNIUS TRACT. 395 

husband cannot sell his wife, nor tlie wife her husband. The 
indented apprentice has a consideration for his services in 
being taught a trade, receiving a good common school educa- 
tion, and being clothed durmg his childish years. lie receives 
the amplest compensation for every particle of labor he 
performs. Can his master sell him ? No. Can his master 
beat him to death under the head of correction and go un- 
punished ? If the master is cruel, his articles of indenture 
can be cancelled, by the magistrates ; but what power, but 
death, cancels the slave's, even if he be seventy years of age. 
"Who ever heard of binding out a boy or girl for life ? Until 
such cases occur, let no comparison be drawn, where there is 
no more resemblance than between an iceberg and a steam- 
boat. Mr. Colton and the Whig party, think the relation of 
parent and child, and master and slave are alike, and the 
relation substantially of the same interesting cliaracter ; and 
slavery appears so amiable, that Mr. Colton and the Whig 
party could not find a more pertinent case of resemblance 
and illustration, than the holy relation of parent and child. 
There are between 300,000 and 400,000 slaves in the United 
States, whose fathers are their masters. Here the double 
relation of master and parent on the one side, and child and 
slave on the other, one would suppose, from Mr. Colton's 
and the Whig party's notions, on such subjects, must be a 
state of too much advantage and happiness for tlie son-s]ave 
or daughter-slave, to last or enjoy on this earth — a greater 
share in the good of this world, than falls to the ordmary lot 
of mortals. The parent and master, according to Mr. Colton, 
will act for the best and do the best for his child; and 
as evidence of his kindness, he considers him or her a slave, 
and frequently sells his own peculiar picture, as early as u 
purchaser presents, to preserve the aifection of his wife, who 
is not delighted in seeing living images of her husband, 
proving that she, the wife, is but the successor of some ser- 



396 ALVAN STEWART. 

vile Libyan dame, in the warmer affection of her husband. 
A father cannot sell his legitimate children, which, perhaps, 
Mr. Colton may consider a disadvantage, under which the 
bastard-slave does not labor ; for the father of the bastard- 
slave often sells him or her, and with the money gives the 
son of the free woman a liberal education at some eastern 
college, while the son of the same father, his half-brother, 
instead of graduating at Yale or Princeton, will receive his 
honors at a cart-tail, where the parchment will be laid on his 
naked back ; where, if he is not made master of arts, he is 
sometimes permitted to graduate from time into eternity. 
Perhaps Mr. Colton thinks it a misfortune that parental au- 
thority ceases at twenty-one years of age, over the child. The 
law of slavery is so kind as never to give up the master's 
solicitude for the slave, even if he should live 100 years. 
This goes to prove, notwithstanding some trifling disadvan- 
tages on the part of the slave, how much more regard the 
master has than the parent — the latter throws up his care 
and responsibility at twenty-one, while the kind master pur- 
sues the slave through all the narrow lanes of life, with a 
master's eye, nor once loses sight of the object of his tender 
solicitude, imtil the slave exchanges the master's kindly grasp 
for the still more kindly gripe of death. 

The son at the death of his father, whether twenty-one, 
under or over, inherits his father's property — the slave is 
inherited — the only difference is between the active and the 
passive voice^ the difference is a mere question of parsing 
grammar. The son ijiherits the slave. The slave is inherited 
by the son. But, according to the doctrine of consideration 
and reciprocity, Mr. Colton and the Whig party would tell 
us the bargain was equal, for if the young master has in- 
herited an aged slave, what then makes it equal is, the aged 
slave has inherited a young master. So the inheritance 
account is balanced by its equality. And if the young master 



EXTKACTS FKOM KEI'LY TO Tlir: JUNIUS TKACr. M07 

sells his aged slave, then the slave has i^ot a nvw mast or, 
which, according to Mr. Colton and the AVliig party, is like 
an old widower getting a new wife. For Mr. Colton com- 
pared slavery to the marriage relation, as one of its most 
fitting illustrations. The master sells the slave's wife and 
children, whom the slave father sees no more: .Mr. Colton, 
the "Whig party and the slaveholders would tell you, that lie, 
the slave, may get him a new wife, for if a man lose his wife 
and children by sale, may he not get him a new wife ? It 
matters not how the slave loses them. 

Mr. Colton is right, in one respect — showing a strong 
resemblance between a child of the master and his slave. 
The child at two years of age is ignorant, does not know 
how to read, wa-ite or cipher. So the slave at forty resem- 
bles, in these respects, the child at two. Mr. Colton con- 
tends the master is bound to feed and clothe the slave. So 
is the owner bound to feed and stable his poor plough-horse, 
and upon the same ground the horse can prosecute, accord- 
mg to Mr. Colton, for neglect to stable and oat him, the 
same as the slave may sue or indict for neglect to feed and 
clothe him. True, the community might indict the man Avho 
abused the horse, or the slave, out of all reason, if they felt 
disposed. 

But the first case is yet to be seen in a court of justice, 
where a southern man has been indicted for ovencorkuKj, 
underfeeding, and 7iot clothing a slave. The first case at 
the Korth is yet to be tried, of overworking and underfeed- 
ing among the tens of thousands of poor, abuse<l, starved 
skeletons of horses. Yet the power of redress, as it regards 
the slave and horse, are exactly equal. The slave has the 
same right to go before a grand jury and state his case, on 
oath, against his master, as the horse has. His oath is not 
allowed against the master, or any white, in any case, or 
received at all. 



SELECTIONS. 

ORGANIZATION. 

A NEW epoch opens. The straitness of the times tasks the 
genius of humanity to fresh efforts. The Reformation cannot 
be carried by the A. S. newspaper, or the hired agent. We 
commend and love them both, but they are high-priced 
instrumentahties. We cannot cultivate mountain land with 
a plough of gold. Slavery has invaded our purses ; slavery 
demands the earnings of Friday and Saturday of the North 
as a miion tax ; we pay it. Bankruptcy is the return cargo 
from the South. One man in five works at the South ; nine 
out of ten work at the North, or the nation would perish. 
The South pay their debts with the bankrupt's certificates — 
that is their circulating medium, as individuals. Repudiation 
in a State is piracy in individuals. Slavery slays by violence, 
one slave in each of the 13 States daily. They fall by cruelty, 
overworking, underfeeding, and in nameless other ways. 
The North looks on. She sees the writhing victims on the 
Union's altar ; she hears their groans. These Union victims, 
whose blood flows on the altar of the confederation, amount 
to 4,745. The Christian rehgion is abolished wherever 
slavery comes to be a legal institution. When Atheism is 
established by law, the Christian religion is repealed by law. 
Slavery is the converse of every proposition in Christianity ; 
whoever sustains it in Church or State, does it at the expense 
of Christianity. 

ABOLITION CONVENTIONS. 

Our Conventions heretofore held have adopted, whether as 



SELECTIONS. .'i'J'J 

town, county or State, tlie mode of sending out a oonimittoo 
to report resolutions. These resolutions have generally heen 
affirmative or negative propositions, touching slavery in the 
Church and State, affirming what we ouglit and ouglit not to 
believe and do. Or, in other words, wc; liave spent tlie last 
seven years in a circle of splendid abst met ions, or gol.h-n 
affirmations of what was or was not the truth, seeming to 
think if we could once mark a proposition as true, on a ten 
hour discussion, that was enough ; and, in fact, we liave acted 
as though our ten thousand resolves had, by our vote, the 
breath of life breathed into them, and that henceforth they 
would fly like an angel of mercy through the world, under 
our new embodiment, as a sort of everlasting agent of trutli, 
not subject to any of the laws of our common mortahty. But 
our abstract propositions had no longer legs nor larger hands 
after we had passed them than before ; and yet wo congratu- 
late ourselves in having fifteen or twenty resolutions, dis- 
cussed or undiscussed. It might often be said that a favorite 
polemical controversy would spring out of a single resolution, 
and use up the entire time of a Convention. In reviewing 
the past, without being too censorious, it cannot be denied 
that we seemed to act as if we had only to pass a resolution to 
organize the State, and distribute light in every corner of tlie 
same — as though we had really done the work by passing the 
resolution. We almost mistook our resolutions for their per- 
formance. We were too well satisfied with resolving to do 
instead o? doing. We spent o*ir energies in establishing our 
abstractions as first principles, and gave but little time to 
the practical carrying out of the same, infinitely the most 
important. 

THE SLAVEHOLDING OMNIBUS. 

The agitation growing out of Texas reveals the fact that 
this Government was from the beginning, and now is, a mere 



400 ALVAxN* STEWAKT. 

slaveholding omnibus to carry slaveholders and their bag- 
gage, and that we at the North have had to feed the 
horses, make the roads and keep the omnibus in repair, for 
the naked reputation of having a right to ride in the omnibus, 
though we have to go on foot, run in the dust, shouting that 
we have equal right to ride with those inside. The North have 
just discovered we are running by the side of the omnibus, 
which is loaded down with slaveholders, slaves, chams, hand- 
cuffs, whips, bloodhounds and slaveholding constructions of 
the Constitution, done up in bundles, labelled, " For the addle- 
headed of the North." Another bundle, entitled "Slave- 
holding Constitutional Compromises," lately discovered by 
the grandson of one of the framers of the Constitution, show- 
ing that the true cabalistic reading of the Constitution is, that 
where the word liberty occurs therein, it means "slavery" — 
where the word justice, there read "injustice or oppression" — 
where any word soever in the Constitution like these, " the 
United States shall guarantee to each State a republican form 
of government," they are to be rejected as entire surplusage, 
as has been the case in the admission of eight slaveholding 
new States — practical construction thereon by Congress. 
There was another bundle entitled " Forgeries or Discoveries," 
that the words in the Constitution " No person shall be de- 
prived of life, liberty or property without due process," is 
falsely printed in all the editions of the Constitution extant, 
and that the true original was framed and adopted in these 
words : " Men or women who ave weak, Mulattoes, Quadroons, 
eights or sixteenths, thirty-seconds, or sixty-fourths, or where 
sixty-three drops of their blood is Anglo-Saxon and one drop 
African, in origin, and in that proportion, shall be deprived 
of life, liberty, and property, without due process of law." 
Also one other bundle entitled, " An astounding discovery 
just come to light in Florida, said to be discovered in the 
hollow of a tree, on which fugitive slaves had ascended to 



* SELECTIONS. 401 

escape the rage of the pursuing hloodhoiinas— n most won- 
derful document on parchment, showing tlial tlic C\.nstitution 
was made for nothing else except as a slave-breeding, nlavo- 
yoting, slave-working, slave-selhng, slave-pursuing and catch- 
ing document." The Korth have made more discoveries 
about the omnibus and its contents in tlie last six months 
than in the last forty years before. 

THE GKEAT EYERY-MAX POWER. 

On the day of the mornmg of the iamous battle of Trafalgar, 
by Lord Nelson against the French, the English Admiral 
caused a piece of Avhite cotton about one hundred feet long 
and twenty-five feet wide, with letters four or five feet long 
to be inscribed thereon and fastened to the masthead of the 
Admiral's ship, that it might be seen by every man to be 
engaged throughout the fleet. The words were : " England 

EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY." Oh ! tllC Cnthusiastic 

shout that went up from England's tars at the sight : 
thousands of whom saw the sun rise this morn for the last 
time forever. The anti-slavery host expect every liberty 
man Avill do his duty. The great secret of successful prose- 
cution of the anti-slavery conquest is yet unrevcaled, and 
Avhere revealed is not believed. The simplicity of means is 
so amazing, men will not believe it. It is the great every- 
man power ^ the one-man j^oicer^ the common-man jyotrer^ the 
unlearned-man power. Every honest anti-slavery man has 
the power of converting some of his neighbors to our glorious 
principles, in the next five weeks by talking, by tract, news- 
paper, or pamphlet. A man of the smallest intellect, is a 
stronger, a wiser and a better man, when armed in the pano- 
ply of eternal justice, mercy and equality, surrounded and 
trusting to these principles, to bear him u]), than the greatest 
intellectual Goliah, who even defied the armies of the living 
God, trusting to his weaver's beam of falsehood and lies. 



402 ALVAN STEWART. , 

polished with the tinsel of the devil's rhetorical varnish. 
One ounce of truth will make the beam kick with a ton of 
lies. 

MYKON HOLLEY. 

The Convention at Rochester, on the 12th, 13th, and 14th 
inst. (June 1844) was one of the largest ever held in this 
State. In addition to the convention proper, thousands of 
the citizens of Rochester and parts adjacent, joined in a grate- 
ful tribute of respect to one of the most illustrious men of the 
Empire State. Yes, Myron Ilolley's shaft of granite, some 
11 or 12 feet in height, weighing between five and six tons, 
will stand commemorating, from generation to generation, 
from century to century, the high born jmrposes of his ma- 
jestic soul, as long as the quiet Genesee shall glide at the 
base of Mount Hope, bearing on its bosom the tears of the 
pilgrim-visiter to this city of silence, and will reveal to the 
great imborn, that me7i lived on the earth in 1844, who ac- 
knowledged the power of genius, and honored a brave hu- 
manity, in a pusillanimous age, and have left this imperishable 
testimony as an incentive to all who have the incHnation and 
power to follow his glorious example. 

NEW YORK BOWING TO VIRGINIA. 

The conduct of Gov. Bouck is looked upon as a base bow- 
ing of the State of New York to slaveholding, despotic Vir- 
ginia. The craven conduct of Bouck will ruin his reputation 
in all coming time — the unmanhness of submitting on our 
knees to Virginia, while she holds an unconstitutional law 
over our heads, and the heads of all the navigators of our 
ships, compelling us New-Yorkers, every time one of our 
ships touches her coasts, to pay $10 of tribute money^ and 
give bonds that we will not steal 7iegroes while on her coasts, 
or in her waters. Bouck seeks this moment of onr degrada- 



SELECTIONS. 403 

tion to make us play the spaniel, and lirk the irct (.four ina.v 
ters by telling them that avc avIII repeal our Jury Trial Law, 
the bulwark of Liberty, and pass a Nine i\Ionth law over 
again, so that Virginia may bring, work, hire, icIiipMnX/Kfta- 
her slaves on our soil nine months at a time, in one yrar. 
Oh ! degraded New York ! Oh, must New York bend Imt 
gallant Empire head, while women-whipping Virginia j)uts 
the yoke on our degraded necks, and keys the bom / 

I returned from this last journey worn down, and all but 
sick, but feel to-day as though I might still work for the helpless. 

A CLERGYMAN UPHOLDING SLAVERY. 

Another of the most prominent of the clergy fell into a 
passion, and very eaniestly asserted that "Slavery was a 
Bible institution, and its use was proper like any other 
institution, and its abuse was the only thing that was 
wrong," — as the relation of husband and wife was a very 
good relation, but the husband may abuse the wife — that 
abuse is vv'rong. Oh ! my countrymen, when such miserable 
men crawl into the pulpits, to insult God, and the Christian 
religion, and become teachers of the road, not to heaven, 
what can you expect but all manner of corrui)tion and dege- 
neracy in the pubhc mind ? What terrible responsibility 
must lie on that man who charges atheistically on the great 
and good God of the Universe, the horrible crime of slavery ? 
A crime which unites within itself all crimes, which exj)unge9 
the decalogue, and insults and treads under foot the divine 
virtues of Christ, and strips the Christian religion of even»' 
beauty, and charges on the deity the crime of giving one half 
of his children to be used as slaves by the others. If the 
father often sons were to give the five youngest to be slaves 
of the five oldest, in the county of Oneida, every man, wo- 
man and child, for one hundred miles around, would cry 
monster ! monster ! ! monster ! ! ! Monster, would be writ- 



404 ALVAN STEWAET. 

ten on his fence, his house, his bam, if men dared come so 
near him. This man would be supposed to be a connecting 
link between Judas Iscariot and Beelzebub. Yes, he would 
occupy the seat of professor of moral depravity ! He would 
be considered the impersonification of the extinct and for- 
gotten depravities of Sodom and Gomorrah, embellished 
with all the acquisitions of modern crime. 

ORIGIN AND OBJECT OF CONSTITUTIONS. 

The difierent States of this Republic are the only ones 
who date their political existence from the adoption of 
written constitutions. The beginning of the nations of 
Europe, reaching far beyond the era of printing, is generally 
lost in the mists hanging over distant periods of time, if not 
absolutely concealed in the darkness of an impenetrable onti- 
quity. Fable and mythology, as to the origin of many of the 
nations of Europe, constitute much the larger share of their 
history ; and conjecture, at last, amidst the conflicts of tra- 
dition, is the strongest light we can bring to bear upon the 
night of distant years. 

The constitutions of the States of this Republic are among 
the most august and certain of human memorials, or national 
records ; existing in thousands of forms, and in tens of thou- 
sands of places, being each but a duplicate of the sacred ori- 
ginal. The constitutions of the different nations of Europe 
seem to be a succession of lost rights, recovered at different 
points of time ; and in some great state emergency, by insur- 
rection, or revolution, have been extorted from the fears or 
necessities of the ruling prince. These successive recoveries 
in many of the kingdoms of Europe, go by the name of the 
constitutions of their countries, which are more properly 
subversions of some ancient despotism, than constitutions. 

But the Constitution of these Republics, both State and 
national, were formed for the mutual protection and defence 



SELECTIONS. 405 

of the persons, liberties, and property of the people ; not 
carving these immunities out of the despotic power lodged 
in the hands of some weak prince, but simply agreeing how 
to employ the great inheritance given them by the King of 
kings, and Lord of lords, for the defence and protection of 
each one, in the enjoyment of his natural rights given to each 
one by his creator. The distinctive character of the Ame- 
rican constitutions, is this, that a State Constitution is a 
covenant or agreement of the entire persons of the State, 
with each person, as an individual, to protect and defend him 
or her in their natural and acquired rights, while each indivi- 
dual covenants and agrees to sustain, with his person and 
estate, the commonwealth. Or in other words, a constitu- 
tion for a State or the nation, is a covenant of the whole 
people with each person, and of each person with the whole 
people. A constitution is the most solemn expression of human 
weakness, and of single person's inability to protect and de- 
fend themselves from the avarice, cruelty, and violence of 
others, therefore, the whole confederate with each, and each 
with the whole, to secure the enjoyment of our God-inherited 
rights. Constitutions are formed to protect natural rights, 
not to create them. Every man has a right to pursue his 
own happiness, in w^hatever way he pleases, unless it violates 
his obligations to God, or the rights of his fellow-man. 

It is the great mistake of many, to suppose, a constitution 
can, or does form the source of our natural rights, and that 
we derive the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness, from our constitutions. We do not derive our title to 
our farms from the fences which surround them, but from 
deeds and patents, originating in the supreme power of the 
State ; so our constitutions, both State and national, are so 
many walls of defence around our natural rights, which we 
hold by a deed, patent from the Almighty. Xo man is capa- 
ble for himself, or for another, to enter into a compact or a 



406 ALVAN STEWART. 

constitution, to forego, sacrifice, or surrender up, while in a 
state of innocence, his natural rights to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. Can any man believe a man would 
concur in making a constitution, which not only refuses to 
protect his natural rights to life, liberty, property, and the 
pursuit of happiness, but absolutely annihilates those rights 
— yes, instead of obtaining protection for his natural rights, 
he comes forward, as some argue, and agrees he has no natu- 
ral rights, and that they are extinguished. Where is the 
man on the wide earth, who was ever found so out of love 
with himself and his posterity, and so devoid of reason, as to 
consent, in person, or clothe a delegate with power, in making 
the fence around his farm for his protection, finally to agree, 
that his title-deeds to his farm should be torn up and de- 
stroyed, and that he and his family might be turned head- 
long into the street, and his house and barn be burnt to the 
ground ? 

If no man ever exercised in person or by delegate the 
power of self-extinction, in making a constitution, where was 
that power acquired in a constitution, which is an agreement 
of the whole with each, and each with the whole, to destroy 
human rights and blot out the manhood of our race, instead 
of nourishing and defending man's natural rights? If slavery 
crept into the Constitution of the United States (which is 
denied), by what possible means, unless by the most melan- 
choly insanity? 

Shall it be said, that part of the people, a minority, instead 
of wishing protection for their natural rights, concluded that 
their share under this Constitution, -should be a perpetual 
power on the part of the majority of the great national 
brotherhood, to extinguish the natural rights of the minority, 
and make them and their posterity slaves and chattels, m all 
time, and all that they, the minority asked, was, that this 
great compromise might be kept inviolable, in all coming 



SELECTIONS. 407 

ages, as the key-stone of the federal arch ? Tliis is sublime 
absurdity. But where, how, or when, was the power for the 
creation and adoption of the federal Constitution gained, ex. 
cept by the consent in person, or through delegates freely 
elected ? Who ever heard of a constitution founded on this 
continent for the destruction of human rights and the blast- 
ing of human hopes ? 

No doubt a charter party might have been entered into to 
prosecute and carry on piracy and man-stealing to and from 
the ill-fated continent of Africa, for a single year, or a single 
voyage ; but in what land of civilization, has it ever reached 
our ears, that a great nation ever met to form a constitution 
for the protection of the majority, and for the perpetual de- 
struction of the minority ? 

The very idea of a constitution implies, that those for 
whom it is made are to gain thereby, and not become losers! 
A constitution is to create a national or state partnership ; in 
which the partners are all equal; each brings the same 
amount of capital for the public weal, each brings the same 
right to be protected ; the life, liberty and pursuit of happi- 
ness of every one, is, in the eye of the Constitution, equal to 
that of any other. But according to the theory and practice 
of the slaveholders and pro-slavery parties of this land, after 
five-sixths of the population came up to create and adopt the 
Constitution, pointing out the great self-evident rights each 
wished more securely to be protected, by this Constitution, 
the last sixth of the people arrived and declared themselves 
equally anxious for the adoption of this Constitution, in order 
constitutionally to dispossess themselves of their natural 
rights, and get rid of their heaven-inherited legacy of life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and wished the same 
instrument, which brought protection, life and liberty to the 
five-sixths, might by construction and interpretation of the 
same mstrument, when applied to the last sixth, be construed 



408 ALVAN STEWART. 

SO as to strip them of all protection, and their natural rights, 
and make them slaves, chattels and outlaws forever. 

But slaveholders and their apologists can find no more 
substantial grounds on which to place this mighty platform 
of human rights, than the foregoing absurdities. 



EXTRACTS FROM 

EEPLY TO THE DEMOCEATIC REYIEW. 

February, 1345. 
ABOLITIONISTS, THE BALAXCE-POWER PARTY. 

The reviewer says, "Abolition has certainly grown now 
into an important political fact." * Again he says, " it is not 
to be denied that at tlie late election, partly from accidental 
circumstances, and partly from its own strength, yet still 
practically as a fact, it has been able to liold, quivering in its 
own mad hand, the balance of power between the two great 
parties of the country." The reviewer then asserts that the 
Abolitionists of the State of New York held the Presi- 
dential election in their hands, and the control of the elec- 
tions and political power of the Empire State, and had power 
to have given these rich prizes of human ambition to either 
side they had seen fit. He then inquires, " has it come to 
this ? Has Abolitionism held in its power the arbitrament 
of this great national issue ?" He says, " poUtical abolition 
is no joke. It is a something, though it be only a wild bull 
loose in the streets." Again he says, " we cannot refuse to 
confess how narrowly we have escaped being fatally gored 
by its horn. Should we have escaped if Mr. Clay had not 
published his Alabama pro-Texas letter ?" Taking the admis- 
sions of this literary organ and distinguished mouth-piece 
of the great conquering plurality and mmority of the twenty 
millions flushed with an unexpected victory, big with 
buoyant exultation, reposing hi the banquet ing-house, amidst 
the roaring of cannon and the shouts of multitudes, about 

18 ^^^ 



410 ALVAN STEWART. 

to wield the destinies of the great nation of the new 
world for long years to come — to them, for good or for 
evil, the mighty power of the Kejoublic, with its vast respon- 
sibilities, is vouchsafed. Still this same triumphant party, in 
the moment of their wonderful success, admit that the 
Liberty party Abolitionists might have sent them into a 
polar winter's night of pohtical ostracism, where they might 
have had an abundance of time to have made an inventory 
of their losses, and have compiled their criminating statistics, 
revealing the sources of their disasters, and the causes of 
their overthrow by force of the great gorings, and the un- 
speakable and prodigious roarings of that tremendous AhoU- 
tion bull of 184:4. 

Let us pause, and for one moment examine, by the light of 
the foregoing admissions of this distinguished professor -of 
elemental Democracy, as to the fict. What other balance- 
poiner 2'>cirty has ever been found before, in this nation or in 
any other, which pursued such a course for its own exalted 
object, in unshaken neutrality, spurning the golden bribe 
laid at its feet, refusing by a transfer of its numbers to either 
side to win, by its preponderance, the casting vote of an 
empire's poAver ? While two great parties sought power, for 
the honor and profit of its exercise, hmiting its blessings to 
the Anglo-Saxon caste, a third party refused its acceptance 
without sharing it with every human being of the repubhc, 
high or low, bond or free, rich or poor, ignorant or learned, 
determining thereby in the end to overthrow slavery, and 
exalt men to that level where the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence left them. 

DEMOCKATIC rEOFESSION AND PEACTICE. 

What but tlie consciousness of patriotism could have in- 
fluenced the Liberty party Abolitionists, and sustained them 
amidst dangers so threatening, temptations so flattering, 



REPLY TO THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW. 411 

opposition so overwhelming? Where is tlie case known in 
our annals of a party refusing homage and empire ; yes all 
that could fascinate the vulgar, or charm the refined, excite 
the selfish or stimulate the generous; for the ambitious tliere 
was place ; for the sordid there was gold ; and the caresses 
of success might have saluted the huzzas of millions in the 
pride of conquest. 

Yes, the Liberty party was firm in occupying its unchange- 
able position, taken on the first of April, 1840, by which it re- 
fused to give a vote for a slaveholder, or his apologist, from con- 
stable to President. Although near two-thirds of their num- 
bers Avere gentlemen from the Wliig ranks, and were keenly 
sensible that in the last ten years they had received injuries 
from the Democratic party, which for magnitude and mean- 
ness had no parallel ; the chronicles of man's history may be 
searched in vain through centuries before the seeker of 
truth would have found the same amount of serviHty sub- 
mitted to, by so large a number of human beings, since the 
dawn of civilization in any ten years of a nation's hfe, ancient 
or modern, for so small consideration as has satisfied the 
Democratic party of the United States to be false to herself, 
unfaithful to her age, and derelict to every abstraction of 
behef she professed, as if it was her chief joy to place an 
impassable gulf between practice and profession, and that her 
works should prosecute a ceaseless war upon her faith. 

The President, on the 4th of March, 1837, in his inaugural 
address, when taking upon himself the official oath — Heaven's 
sanction for Earth's performance— swearmg by the retribu- 
tion of that great day, when president and people, governors 
and governed, slaves and masters, should each stand alone, 
to answer for himself before Omniscient Justice, yet, in such 
an hour of time, he promises, in effect, to violate the Consti- 
tution, and veto any bill that might be passed for the eman- 
cipation of slaves in the District of Columbia. 



4:12 ALVAN STEWART. 

This was the boldest criminality in attempt, this was 
sacrilege of the high priest in the temple, and high treason in 
the coronation oath ; he abjured man in distress, and fore- 
swore our common humanity and made the Constitution 
and American institutions, so far as president could make 
them, by his fiat alone, a cow-hide oligarchy, and the will 
of the ten millions of the North, and the non-slaveholding 
white millions of the South, was paralyzed, and the slave- 
holding ukase henceforth was the government, and the title 
deeds to the blood-purchased mstitutions of our ancestors 
were not Avorth the space they occupied, or the paper and 
parchment on which they were written. 

REVERSE THEORIES. 

If we must always make war on what we profess, would to 
heaven, our political tlieories could be reversed, and that our 
abstractions were, universal inequality, and that man had the 
abstract right to enslave and' imbrute his fellow-man, that 
superior brute force was the great rule of right, and that the 
strong might do what they pleased to the weak. 

DEMOCRATS SUCCUMB TO SOUTHERN THREATS. 

In ten thousand ways, for the last ten years, the ISTorthern 
democracy, until this winter, bowed, with the submissive- 
ness of the scourged slave, at the crack of the whip, to the 
every command of the haughty slaveholder, with the ever- 
lasting threat in their mouths : " flinch in stabbing liberty 
here, or liberty there ; or the executioner, with his basket of 
sawdust, shall move before you, and when you look again 
you shall behold the headless trunk of Martin, the supple." 
Will not such fearful menaces be the best apology the Demo- 
cratic party can offer to the impartial historian, when the 
record of man's accountability to man shall be unrolled ? 



BEPLY TO TUE DEMOCRATIC KEVIEW. 413 



slavery's deceit. 

If the slaveholders had not cheated their diq^es, at last, it 
would have been an inconsistency of conduct which criti- 
cism itself has never been able to discover or fasten on their 
peculiar institutions. 

FANCY STOCK. 

Neither party pretended it came within the scope of their 
commissions, to reduce our American abstractions to prac- 
tice. Though it is not denied, that either of the two great 
j)arties had an immense amount of fancy stock in abstrac- 
tions, sufficient, if the capital was but paid in, to cleanse the 
terraqueous globe from all crime, wrong or impropriety, 
which have disgraced the annals of man. 

SERVILITY OF THE DEMOCRATS. 

We cannot hope to impress men who are so well satisfied 
with the objectless victory, lately obtained by the democratic 
party, as the editor of the "Democratic Review" is — who 
regard government as a job, made for the benefit of its ad- 
ministrators, who could conceive no higher object in making 
a canal, than to be the excavating contractors and its lock 
tenders, nor any higher motive for building a turnpike, than 
the chance of erecting the gate house, or being toll collector. 
It may be matter of regret, that men, who so poorly appreci- 
ate the end and object of a Republican government, should 
be intrusted with its control, still we may pity them, m their 
success, as time lost to their race, during their power ; but as 
a party they have long been bent double in a shameless and 
craven posture, before the slave power, awaiting the shaking 
of the crumb cloth ; charity therefore, compels us to admit, 
that the rigidity of their muscles will not bear an instanta- 
neous perpendicularity of the body— from the horizontal to 



414 ■ AI.VAN STEWAET. 

the rectilinear extension of the tendons, and therefore we fear 
that years must pass before they can looJc the zenith in its 
face. And you have bowed and cast your modest eyes to 
the ground, as your masters from these States spurned peti- 
tions for enslaved men ; reviled free labor institutions, 
declared slavery the chief corner stone of a Repubhc, and per- 
mitted their twenty-three slave counted three-fifth represent- 
atives ever and anon to pull your beards, and threaten the 
dissolution of the Union, and you said " sweet masters, oh ! 
do not," and trembled. 

Has not the Democratic party, by the command of their 
masters, for twelve years gone by, until the repeal of the 
25th Kule — at all times and on all occasions, stood in the cen- 
tre of the path, with a drawn sword, facing and obstructing 
every movement of humanity, for the amelioration of the free 
colored man, the emancipation of the slave, or the rescue of 
free labor institutions, from the indignities of slaveholders ? 

The Liberty party go for the Constitution unchanged, as 
the great palladium of human liberty. AYe go for the entire 
Union, slavery in^ or slavery out.^ Texas in or Texas out ; 
we will never give up one inch of the soil of our stupendous 
republic, to unmanly compromise, but will contend at the 
ballot box, with rendered reasons in our votes, and argu- 
ments in our mouths, made of justice and of truth, to-day, to- 
morrow and to our lives' ends ; and leave the bequest to our 
children, to purify the pilgrim land of the ]^ew World from 
slavery and make this land the theatre for accomplishing the 
desire of nations, by raising man through justice and know- 
ledge to the summit level of man's glorious capabilities. Mr. 
Reviewer, is this madness which alarms, injustice that 
startles, innovation that terrifies, or sacrilege which j^rofanes, 
in the organization of a party whose elements are justice to 
all, mercy to all, protection to all, education for all, wages 
for all, toleration to all ; none so strong as to be above tho 



REPLY TO THE DE:vr()CKATIC REVIEW. 415 

law, none so weak as to fall below its succor. Just and equal 
law shall be eyes to the blind, oars to the deaf, feet to tlie 
lame, its atmosphere shall brace tlie strong man in his jour- 
ney and be respired by the infant in its cradle, and vindicnte 
its supremacy over the assassin's knife, assert its majesty 
over the madness of the mob, and hear the lowest note of 
insulted humanity. 

ABSTRACT ABOLITIOX. 

But the Democratic reviewer says, the Liberty party has 
committed great mistakes, and says " he has no reference to 
the general question pro or con, of the Abolition of slavery," 
he says " AboUti07i and AhoUtionis7n are two wholly distinct 
things," and that many look with favor on the former who 
are firmly opposed to the latter. 

He says, we ought to hate slavery and love the slave- 
holder ; and that this is the great and capital mistake of the 
Liberty party. He understands Abolition — hatred of slavery, 
in the abstract — to be one thing, while Abolitionism is a ' 
sincere opposition to slavery and its supporters, taking active 
means for its overthrow, and a very different thing. This 
latter sort shocks our Democratic reviewer. This distinc- 
tion is not so original, as to entitle him to a patent for its 
discovery. But as here lies the great mistake of tlicse '•' one 
idea" men, it may be well to fasten our attention to it. The 
reviewer's proposition, in Democratic English is this, abstract 
Abolition is a hatred of abstract slavery, without attempting 
immediately, or remotely, to give liberty to a single slave ; 
that is prime Abolition, in his opinion, such as will pass current, 
with the reviewer, and even the slaveholders themselves. He 
assures us, many slaveholders entertain great respect for 
Abolition of this type, and therefore the reviewer seems to 
admit that this kind or sort must be correct. But Aholition- 
^sm, which forms associations, applies hard arguments, strong 



416 ALVAN STEWAET. 

reasons, for immediate emancipation, and uses the ballot-box, 
and all constitutional power, to make itself felt for the over- 
throw of this terrible sin, this is outright fanaticism and all 
wrong. The reviewer's Abolition is to tJiinh right but do 
7iothing. To illustrate his position, it is like this : My inno- 
cent friend has unjustly been torn from me, and immured in 
a dungeon, and the reviewer's doctrine is, I may thinJc my 
friend was unjustly imprisoned and ought to be out ; but says 
one, " why do you not apply for a writ of Habeas Corpus 
and have your friend brought up before the judge, and dis- 
charged ?" But I reply, " how dare you give me such mad 
and fanatical advice ? You talk Uke a modern Abolitionist. 
Do you not know, sir, that there is the breadth of the earth's 
diameter between heliemng my friend is wrongfully impri- 
soned, and the talcing the first step for his deliverance ? Sir, 
you are demented! I will not take one measure for his dis- 
charge, he may lie and rot there, and the ants may carry his 
mortal remains through the keyhole of his dungeon before 
I move in the matter. I am as much opposed to his being in 
the dungeon as any man alive, and there my duty ends." 
AboHtionists not having the faculty to love slaveholders and 
hate slavery, the reviewer says, is our gi-eat mistake. A man 
has a daughter kidnapped and enslaved in a brick yard, she 
is compelled by the power of the lash, amidst tears and blood, 
to make brick. A neighbor hears the father of the poor 
captive calling the enslaver of his child a robber, a thief, a 
fiend, an incarnate devil. " Hush !" says the neighbor to the 
father, " you may curse the enslaving of your child as an ab- 
straction^ but you must entertain nothing but love and res- 
pect for her enslaver ; he, the enslaver of your child, is an 
hospitable, chivalrous fellow, generous as a prince in his house, 
keeps the best pack of hounds, the finest stud of blood and 
racehorses, of any man in the country ; and just please to 
remember, there are forty fathers and mothers whose sons 



REPLY TO THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW. 417 

and daughters are toiling with your daughter, in tlie same 
brick yard, whose children he took and carried oiF with your 
daughter ; and, again, it is tlie peculiar institution and the 
peculiar mode of making brick adopted by this gentleman." 
Says the neighbor, " condemn sin and not the sinner, shive:y 
but not the slaveholder." " Ah !" says the agonized father, 
" was there ever sin without a sinner, or slavery without a 
slaveholder ?" If our Democratic reviewer's ideas of moral 
responsibility are right, the whole world is wrong ; he vir- 
tually says, " Hang the murder, and let the murderer most 
affectionately go free; most lovingly discharge the horse- 
thief, and send grand larceny to the State prison ; set free 
with a kiss the midnight burglar, and send his indictment for 
burglary to the penitentiary ; the house-burner Ave should 
embrace with great endearments, but stretch his arson on the 
gibbet." If this is so, society has made a grand mistake, in 
erecting penitentiaries, jails, dungeons and castles, where the 
criminals they confine should have never been, but rather 
should have been cheered by loving smiles, have moved as 
the elite of the grand and fashionable world — the true heau 
monde of high-minded eccentricities. Then let all the ab- 
stract crimes of this world of ours be forever himg, burnt, 
cropped, whipped and imprisoned in some lady'^s thimble^ 
which would hold it all {with rooms to let)^ and let this thim- 
ble stand on some Jesuit's table, warning the generations of 
men, as they come and go, that the true road to the love and 
affections of mankind is in the commission of the highest 
crimes, and that the everlasting writhings.of these unpardoned 
abstractions of criminality, in the thimhle^ stand as in bold 
rehef to vindicate the justice of this world in condemning 
crimes, and loving criminals. 

EE-CESSION OF THE 10 MILES SQUARE. 

After expressing great distress, on the part of the Re- 

18* 



418 ALVA^ STEWAET. 

viewer, at Mr. Calhoun's having nationalized slavery and 
stripped it of all locality, as an institution, he fears a tremen- 
dous eruption of the Northern Abolitionists, into the houses 
of Congress, by petitions to abohsli slavery in the Dictrict and 
the internal slave trade, at the next session of Congress, and 
to get rid of such fearful injuries to the Democratic party, 
and the liberties of this nation, he comes out with his graiid 
Pa7iacea^ to arrest our Yandal career, that is, by ceding 
back the ten miles square to the States of Virginia and Mary- 
land, and thus preserve the unspeakable blessings of slavery, 
and the slave trade, as State institutions, which can no longer 
be defended as national ones. This is all the great Demo- 
cratic party, in the hours of its transports at its success, can 
undertake to do, for the cause of human liberty, and the ele- 
vation of the masses in the new world ! The world is likely 
thereby, to be involved in a debt of gratitude, so overwhelm- 
ing in amount, that insolvency will be the only mode of meet- 
ing the interest, and repudiation of discharging the principal. 

TUE PROSPECTS OF LIBEKTY. 1846. 

Some very judicious and prudent liberty-men, hope and be- 
lieve that the coming winter will open a new drama flattering 
in character, auspicious with new-born hopes, in reveahng to 
us large accessions to the army of liberty, recruited from 
the ranks of the thinking and considerate, who will forever 
forswear all allegiance to that baleful and mysterious povv'cr, 
exei'cised by the slaveholders from the foundations of the 
Republic, to uphold Southern slavery and destroy Northern 
freedom. This hope is borne up in the arms of thj Wilmot 
Proviso, by which men could manifest the exact amount of 
abhorrence each one entertained against slavery, in the 
most abstract sense of language, without stopping to consi- 
der the effect of the Constitution of the Union, State legisla- 
tion or implied or express compromises. 



LAWS, KESP0NSII5LE FOR SLAVKRV. 419 

Such an hour and sucli a clay it was believed liad coiue, 
when the timid miglit safely be brave, tlie weak l)ecoine 
strong, when casuistry would lie speechless before friuikiiess, 
and double dealing' would be superseded by siniplicily, and 
truth would walk over the field without an antagonist, while 
the powers of inhumanity Avould be tongue-tied from inability 
to reply to these great aphorisms, that a man is a man the 
world over, and while innocent has always a better right to 
his own body than any other person within the limits of the 
universe. It would seem that the noble proviso of Wilmot 
must bring the mind of man to stand in front of the full blaze 
of the light of Nature and there behold man as he comes from 
his Creator, before he is ever injured by cruelty or appropri- 
ated by avarice. 'No legislative conscience-plasters are here 
spread over the question, to impair the natural sensibilities 
of the human mind. 

THE LAWS MADE THE SCAPE-GOAT. 

All legislation by which one man's liberty is taken from him 
and given to another, as a matter of advantage, is nothing 
but an attempt of the body politic to take the responsibility 
of the sin, which it is supposed could not be borne by the 
slaveholder, as an individual. Sad would have been the con- 
dition of the slaveholder, had he not converted his private 
iniquity into a law, and the slaveholding community aggre- 
gated and yoked together the most horrible and frightful of 
individual wrongs and outrages ever put forth by man against 
man, and then breathed into those atrocities the breath of 
law and called them legal and peculiar institutions. Thus 
the bold ruffians Avho laid the foundations of slavery in 
blood, by force of the pistol, the rifle, the bloodhound and 
the chain, instead of making the personal might of their own 
bloody arms the only tenure by which their supremacy was 
proclaimed over theii* man, came together in legislative 



4:20 ALVAN 6TEWAET. 

assemblies, and asked the State to become their champion 
and wear their fearful honors, and under the idea of organic 
sin, to become the scape-goat to bear into the wilderness 
transgressions too heavy for men, as individuals, to bear. 
Thus when conscience cried against the crime, when the 
stones of the street unlocked their marble jaws and cried 
"shame" and "murder," the individual might point to the 
statute book and say, " there is the sinner ; I am holy ; a 
law-honoring man. Let the wrath of the Eternal, and of all 
good men, be poured out on the session laws of South Caro- 
lina, but never, oh ! never let them impute wrong to those 
who call in the aid of those statute laws." 

Let this logic prevail, and the wicked men of a State may 
repeal every law of Heaven, and set the Eternal at defiance, 
and at the day of judgment plead in bar of God's law the 
session laws of South Carolina. And if the plea is good 
for this world, as an organic sin-plea, it will be a perfect bar 
to accountability in the next. For what is right and availa- 
ble in the eye of moral justice in this transitory world, will 
be so when the sun and moon shall set to rise no more. Yes, 
when the judgment day shall have come and gone. Yes, and 
forever. That which was right here, will never be wrong in 
the revolving circles of eternity. Right is a straight line 
running through time and eternity. Man can never crook it. 
It is a line surveyed by the Almighty. 



THE END. 



EEFEEEKCE TO PEIXCIPAL TOPICS. 



A. 

PACK 

Army of Liberation 40 

Abolitionists Misrepresented 51 

" Crime of 59 

Abstract Slavery 54 

Abolition, Age of 61 

Abolitionists Above Board ^"^ 

Abolitionism Dying ^^ 

American Sentiment and Legislation 73 

Abolitionists, AVhat have they done ? 91 

Archives Buried 1-" 

Anthropophagi "1" 

Abolitionists, their Difficulties 261 

Angel of Deliverance ^^ 

Abolition, Abstract 871, 415 

Act of 1793 8'6 

Abolitionists, the Balance of power Party 409 

B. 

Bowdown, John ^H 

Ill 

Ballot-box. '" * 234.390 



Banded Power 

Ballot-box 

Bailey, Dr., Letter to 251, 8GS 

2CT 

828 



Ballot-box 26^ 

Bible, its Teachings 

o. 

Constitution and Slavery '^2 

f(i; 
Color in a Quandary ' 

Colonizing, the KITect of 1*^'- 

Constitution 

Cain and Abel, First Issue ^■-'* 

Chorus of Freedraen 1 "^ 

Columbia District of 163,417 

421 



4*52 KEFEEENCE TO PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 



PAG« 

Constitutioncides 171 

Congress, Power of 175 

Clay, Speech in answer to 195 

Columbia, Speech in relation to 195 

Conversation between Bride and Bridegroom .- 207, 208 

Committee, Report of, on Slavery 209 

Committee National, Address of 2S4 

Colonizatibn Society 259 

Canada Mission 260 

Congrei^s, Law of 296 

Constitution of New Jersey 272, 814 

Commands of God 829 

Constitution, an Anti-Slavery Document 833 

Clergymen, Duty of 187 

Clergymen upholding Slavery 403 . 

Constitution, Origin and Object of 404 

D. 

Declaration of Independence 41, 44, 250 

Dissolution of the Union 55 

Dough-faces 110 

Desertion from the Ranks '. 110 

Duty to refute Slander Ill 

December 21st, 1S37 119, 120 

Democrats and the South *. 243 

Democratic Profession and Practice 410 

Democrats yield to Southern Threats 423 

Democrats, Servility of 413 

E, 

England's Glory 61 

Education, Perverted Ill 

Ecclesiastical Recreancy 112 

Egypt against the Hebrews 132 

Expediency 181 

Essay, expected from Whig and Democrats 243 

English Slavery 282 

English Feudal Law 285 

England's Judiciary 290 

Egypt and the Jews. 823 

Egyptian Plagues 825 

F. 

Fathers, Voice of the 60 

Free Speech 84 

Free Soil 113 

Fourth cf July Orations 821 



REFERENCE TO PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 423 

G. 

Goodell, William 26 

Gaggers ^^3 

Gilmer, Gov., Letter to 219 

Ghent, Treaty of. 802 

H. 

Hod-carriers of Slavery I49 

Habeas Corpus, Argument in case of 273 

Homine Replegiando 2ST 

Holley, Myron 402 

I. 

Issue, neglecting Ihe True HI 

Issues between Right and "Wrong 129 

Idumea s Blight 135 

L. 

Liberty's Imperial Guard 109 

Labor, Mode of 113 

Liberty, Temple of 150 

Law of Nations 291 

Law of Nature 303 

Laws made the Scape Goat 419 

M. 

Mob, at Utica, in 1S35 12 

Marcy, Governor, Letter to 58 

Mobs, Panacea for Errors of Opinion 68 

Mahomet's Coffin 112 

Marts of Blood 176 

Murder Judicial 1 S9 

Mansfield Lord 253, 293 

May Flower 279 

Massachusetts, Decision of. 814 

Man, his Dignity 817 

" " Rights Inalienable 819 

Mount Vernon 363 

Ministers, Debate with 869 

N. 

The Abject North "15 

Noah against the "World 133 

No-Tongue Men 148 

North Star— Slave's Compass 217 

New Jersey, Slavery in 272 

Nations, Law of 291 



4:24: REFERENCE TO PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 

PA3E 

Nature, Law of 808 

Nile, running Blood • 325 

New York, Revision of Constitution 355 

Nancy's Case 3T9 

New York bowing to Virginia 402 

o. 

One Idea 49 

Omissions in Gov. Marcy's Message 88 

Organization 896 

Omnibus, Slaveholding 899 

P. 

Pierpont, Rev. John, Letter 24 

Port Byron Convention 26 

Political Parties 43 

Powers Surrendered 64 

Piracy Continued 93 

Petition, Right of 118 

Philadelphia Hall, Speeches in » 117, 129 

" " Burning of 155 to 159 

Political Division 180 

Proclamation, Virginia's 223 

Prospects of Freedom 246 

Plagues of Egypt 825 

Parents, duty to 187 

Parent and Child, Slavery assimilated to 894 

Power, Every Man 401 

R. 

Reformers maligned 108 

Redeemer, Advent of 188 

Reformation, The 139 

Revolution, The American 146 

Religion and Legislation 191 

Reserved Rights : 859 

s. 

Stewart, Alvan, as an Anti-Slavery Man 9 

Smith, Gerrit 83 

Scope of this Book. 40 

Ship of State 42 

Sycophancy invades the College 110 

Success, Ultimate 114 

States, Duty of 171 

Southern Threats , 179 

Southampton Massacre, 261 



EEFEKENCE TO PEINCIPAL TOPICS. 425 



Sharpe, Granville 253 295 

South, Cost of Defence of ' 25S 

Self-ownership 274 

South Carolina could only take Care of Herself 288 

Somerset's Case 293 

Slavery Right, Colton's Argument 893 

Slavery, its Recoil 43 

Slavery, Yiew of g9 

Slaveholders foiled 92 

Southern Chivalry 95 

Slaveholders unmasked 93 

Slave Trade, Internal and Foreign 99 

" Comparison of the Two lOO 

" Horrors of this Traffic 101 

" Importance of Abolishing 102 

Slavery Arraigned lOS 

Slavery palsies Thrift II5 

Slaves, Do they desire Liberty ? , 115 

Slaveholders' Shame 123 

Slavery, Report on 124 

Slaveholding Catechism 190 

Slaves' Condition here and hereafter 193 

Slaveholder Travelling on Proceeds of his Children 206 

Slavery, Curses of 236 

" in the Abstract 233 

♦' what it has done 243 

of old 273 

Slave Ship, the First 230 

Slave Law 296 

Slavery, Institution of. 299 

Slave's Fall 187 

Slavery, a Bible Institution 856 

Slaveholders, Debate with 875 

T. 

Thompson, George, his Letter 13 

Tappan Lewis, Letter to 18 

Turner, Nat 113 

Thing-Representatives in Congress 165 

Tinkem, of Trenton 864 

Theories, reversed 412 

u. 

Unionists 52 

Union, dissolution of 55 

Union dissolved 8S 

Union-Splitters 240 



426 REFERENCE TO PRINCIPAL TOPICS. 

V. 

PAGK 

Vermont 110 

Tote, Duty to 112 

Vermont, Speech before Legislature 160 

" The Freemen of 161 

•' Foremost for Liberty 163 

Virginia's Demand on New York of three Colored Men 219 

" Land, Dilapidated 861 

Vermont, Visit to 866 

Volcano, Constitutional 391 

w. 

Whittier, Letter 25 

Weld, Theodore D 85 

War of 1812 47 

War-Steed of Anti-Slavery 114 

Webb, Samuel, Letters to 155, 248 

"Whig Party subservient to Slavery 239 

Washington, City of, its Capture 284, 372 

West Indies 808 






31^77-2 



